SCENE I. Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA's palace.

1. PHILO
">
2. Nay, but this dotage of our general's
3. O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
4. That o'er the files and musters of the war
5. Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
6. The office and devotion of their view
7. Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
8. Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
9. The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
10. And is become the bellows and the fan
11. To cool a gipsy's lust.
12. Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her Ladies, the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her
13. Look, where they come:
14. Take but good note, and you shall see in him.
15. The triple pillar of the world transform'd
16. Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

1. Attendant
">
2. News, my good lord, from Rome.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Grates me: the sum.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Nay, hear them, Antony:
3. Fulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows
4. If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
5. His powerful mandate to you, 'Do this, or this;
6. Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
7. Perform 't, or else we damn thee.'

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. How, my love!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Perchance! nay, and most like:
3. You must not stay here longer, your dismission
4. Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
5. Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? both?
6. Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen,
7. Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
8. Is Caesar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame
9. When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
3. Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
4. Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
5. Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
6. Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
7. Embracing
8. And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
9. On pain of punishment, the world to weet
10. We stand up peerless.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Excellent falsehood!
3. Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
4. I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
5. Will be himself.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. But stirr'd by Cleopatra.
3. Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,
4. Let's not confound the time with conference harsh:
5. There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
6. Without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Hear the ambassadors.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Fie, wrangling queen!
3. Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
4. To weep; whose every passion fully strives
5. To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
6. No messenger, but thine; and all alone
7. To-night we'll wander through the streets and note
8. The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
9. Last night you did desire it: speak not to us.

1. DEMETRIUS
">
2. Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?

1. PHILO
">
2. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
3. He comes too short of that great property
4. Which still should go with Antony.

1. DEMETRIUS
">
2. I am full sorry
3. That he approves the common liar, who
4. Thus speaks of him at Rome: but I will hope
5. Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!

SCENE II. The same. Another room.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas,
3. almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer
4. that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew
5. this husband, which, you say, must charge his horns
6. with garlands!

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Soothsayer!

1. Soothsayer
">
2. Your will?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?

1. Soothsayer
">
2. In nature's infinite book of secrecy
3. A little I can read.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Show him your hand.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
3. Cleopatra's health to drink.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Good sir, give me good fortune.

1. Soothsayer
">
2. I make not, but foresee.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Pray, then, foresee me one.

1. Soothsayer
">
2. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. He means in flesh.

1. IRAS
">
2. No, you shall paint when you are old.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Wrinkles forbid!

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Hush!

1. Soothsayer
">
2. You shall be more beloving than beloved.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Nay, hear him.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married
3. to three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all:
4. let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry
5. may do homage: find me to marry me with Octavius
6. Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.

1. Soothsayer
">
2. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. O excellent! I love long life better than figs.

1. Soothsayer
">
2. You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
3. Than that which is to approach.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Then belike my children shall have no names:
3. prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

1. Soothsayer
">
2. If every of your wishes had a womb.
3. And fertile every wish, a million.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. We'll know all our fortunes.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall
3. be--drunk to bed.

1. IRAS
">
2. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.

1. IRAS
">
2. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful
3. prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee,
4. tell her but a worky-day fortune.

1. Soothsayer
">
2. Your fortunes are alike.

1. IRAS
">
2. But how, but how? give me particulars.

1. Soothsayer
">
2. I have said.

1. IRAS
">
2. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than
3. I, where would you choose it?

1. IRAS
">
2. Not in my husband's nose.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,--come,
3. his fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman
4. that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and let
5. her die too, and give him a worse! and let worst
6. follow worse, till the worst of all follow him
7. laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good
8. Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a
9. matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!

1. IRAS
">
2. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people!
3. for, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man
4. loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a
5. foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep
6. decorum, and fortune him accordingly!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Amen.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a
3. cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but
4. they'ld do't!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Hush! here comes Antony.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Not he; the queen.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Saw you my lord?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. No, lady.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Was he not here?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. No, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
3. A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Madam?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Seek him, and bring him hither.
3. Where's Alexas?

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Here, at your service. My lord approaches.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. We will not look upon him: go with us.

1. Messenger
">
2. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Against my brother Lucius?

1. Messenger
">
2. Ay:
3. But soon that war had end, and the time's state
4. Made friends of them, joining their force 'gainst Caesar;
5. Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
6. Upon the first encounter, drave them.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Well, what worst?

1. Messenger
">
2. The nature of bad news infects the teller.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. When it concerns the fool or coward. On:
3. Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:
4. Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
5. I hear him as he flatter'd.

1. Messenger
">
2. Labienus--
3. This is stiff news--hath, with his Parthian force,
4. Extended Asia from Euphrates;
5. His conquering banner shook from Syria
6. To Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Antony, thou wouldst say,--

1. Messenger
">
2. O, my lord!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue:
3. Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;
4. Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my faults
5. With such full licence as both truth and malice
6. Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,
7. When our quick minds lie still; and our ills told us
8. Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.

1. Messenger
">
2. At your noble pleasure.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!

1. First Attendant
">
2. The man from Sicyon,--is there such an one?

1. Second Attendant
">
2. He stays upon your will.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Let him appear.
3. These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
4. Or lose myself in dotage.
5. Enter another Messenger
6. What are you?

1. Second Messenger
">
2. Fulvia thy wife is dead.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Where died she?

1. Second Messenger
">
2. In Sicyon:
3. Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
4. Importeth thee to know, this bears.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Forbear me.
3. Exit Second Messenger
4. There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
5. What our contempt doth often hurl from us,
6. We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
7. By revolution lowering, does become
8. The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
9. The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
10. I must from this enchanting queen break off:
11. Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
12. My idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. What's your pleasure, sir?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I must with haste from hence.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Why, then, we kill all our women:
3. we see how mortal an unkindness is to them;
4. if they suffer our departure, death's the word.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I must be gone.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were
3. pity to cast them away for nothing; though, between
4. them and a great cause, they should be esteemed
5. nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of
6. this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty
7. times upon far poorer moment: I do think there is
8. mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon
9. her, she hath such a celerity in dying.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. She is cunning past man's thought.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but
3. the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her
4. winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater
5. storms and tempests than almanacs can report: this
6. cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a
7. shower of rain as well as Jove.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Would I had never seen her.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece
3. of work; which not to have been blest withal would
4. have discredited your travel.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Fulvia is dead.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Sir?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Fulvia is dead.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Fulvia!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Dead.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When
3. it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man
4. from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth;
5. comforting therein, that when old robes are worn
6. out, there are members to make new. If there were
7. no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,
8. and the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned
9. with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new
10. petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion
11. that should water this sorrow.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. The business she hath broached in the state
3. Cannot endure my absence.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. And the business you have broached here cannot be
3. without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which
4. wholly depends on your abode.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. No more light answers. Let our officers
3. Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
4. The cause of our expedience to the queen,
5. And get her leave to part. For not alone
6. The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
7. Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
8. Of many our contriving friends in Rome
9. Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
10. Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands
11. The empire of the sea: our slippery people,
12. Whose love is never link'd to the deserver
13. Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
14. Pompey the Great and all his dignities
15. Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
16. Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
17. For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
18. The sides o' the world may danger: much is breeding,
19. Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
20. And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure,
21. To such whose place is under us, requires
22. Our quick remove from hence.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I shall do't.

SCENE III. The same. Another room.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Where is he?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. I did not see him since.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. See where he is, who's with him, what he does:
3. I did not send you: if you find him sad,
4. Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
5. That I am sudden sick: quick, and return.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,
3. You do not hold the method to enforce
4. The like from him.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What should I do, I do not?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. In each thing give him way, cross him nothing.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear:
3. In time we hate that which we often fear.
4. But here comes Antony.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I am sick and sullen.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall:
3. It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature
4. Will not sustain it.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Now, my dearest queen,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Pray you, stand further from me.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. What's the matter?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I know, by that same eye, there's some good news.
3. What says the married woman? You may go:
4. Would she had never given you leave to come!
5. Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here:
6. I have no power upon you; hers you are.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. The gods best know,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O, never was there queen
3. So mightily betray'd! yet at the first
4. I saw the treasons planted.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Cleopatra,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Why should I think you can be mine and true,
3. Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
4. Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
5. To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
6. Which break themselves in swearing!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Most sweet queen,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going,
3. But bid farewell, and go: when you sued staying,
4. Then was the time for words: no going then;
5. Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
6. Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor,
7. But was a race of heaven: they are so still,
8. Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
9. Art turn'd the greatest liar.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. How now, lady!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst know
3. There were a heart in Egypt.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Hear me, queen:
3. The strong necessity of time commands
4. Our services awhile; but my full heart
5. Remains in use with you. Our Italy
6. Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius
7. Makes his approaches to the port of Rome:
8. Equality of two domestic powers
9. Breed scrupulous faction: the hated, grown to strength,
10. Are newly grown to love: the condemn'd Pompey,
11. Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace,
12. Into the hearts of such as have not thrived
13. Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;
14. And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
15. By any desperate change: my more particular,
16. And that which most with you should safe my going,
17. Is Fulvia's death.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
3. It does from childishness: can Fulvia die?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. She's dead, my queen:
3. Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read
4. The garboils she awaked; at the last, best:
5. See when and where she died.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O most false love!
3. Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
4. With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,
5. In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know
3. The purposes I bear; which are, or cease,
4. As you shall give the advice. By the fire
5. That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence
6. Thy soldier, servant; making peace or war
7. As thou affect'st.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Cut my lace, Charmian, come;
3. But let it be: I am quickly ill, and well,
4. So Antony loves.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. My precious queen, forbear;
3. And give true evidence to his love, which stands
4. An honourable trial.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. So Fulvia told me.
3. I prithee, turn aside and weep for her,
4. Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears
5. Belong to Egypt: good now, play one scene
6. Of excellent dissembling; and let it look
7. Life perfect honour.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. You'll heat my blood: no more.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. You can do better yet; but this is meetly.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Now, by my sword,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. And target. Still he mends;
3. But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,
4. How this Herculean Roman does become
5. The carriage of his chafe.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I'll leave you, lady.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Courteous lord, one word.
3. Sir, you and I must part, but that's not it:
4. Sir, you and I have loved, but there's not it;
5. That you know well: something it is I would,
6. O, my oblivion is a very Antony,
7. And I am all forgotten.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. But that your royalty
3. Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
4. For idleness itself.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. 'Tis sweating labour
3. To bear such idleness so near the heart
4. As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;
5. Since my becomings kill me, when they do not
6. Eye well to you: your honour calls you hence;
7. Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly.
8. And all the gods go with you! upon your sword
9. Sit laurel victory! and smooth success
10. Be strew'd before your feet!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Let us go. Come;
3. Our separation so abides, and flies,
4. That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me,
5. And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee. Away!

SCENE IV. Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
3. It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate
4. Our great competitor: from Alexandria
5. This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
6. The lamps of night in revel; is not more man-like
7. Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy
8. More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or
9. Vouchsafed to think he had partners: you shall find there
10. A man who is the abstract of all faults
11. That all men follow.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. I must not think there are
3. Evils enow to darken all his goodness:
4. His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,
5. More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary,
6. Rather than purchased; what he cannot change,
7. Than what he chooses.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. You are too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not
3. Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;
4. To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit
5. And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;
6. To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
7. With knaves that smell of sweat: say this
8. becomes him,--
9. As his composure must be rare indeed
10. Whom these things cannot blemish,--yet must Antony
11. No way excuse his soils, when we do bear
12. So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd
13. His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
14. Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones,
15. Call on him for't: but to confound such time,
16. That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
17. As his own state and ours,--'tis to be chid
18. As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,
19. Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
20. And so rebel to judgment.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Here's more news.

1. Messenger
">
2. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,
3. Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report
4. How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;
5. And it appears he is beloved of those
6. That only have fear'd Caesar: to the ports
7. The discontents repair, and men's reports
8. Give him much wrong'd.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I should have known no less.
3. It hath been taught us from the primal state,
4. That he which is was wish'd until he were;
5. And the ebb'd man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love,
6. Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,
7. Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
8. Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
9. To rot itself with motion.

1. Messenger
">
2. Caesar, I bring thee word,
3. Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
4. Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound
5. With keels of every kind: many hot inroads
6. They make in Italy; the borders maritime
7. Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt:
8. No vessel can peep forth, but 'tis as soon
9. Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more
10. Than could his war resisted.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Antony,
3. Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
4. Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
5. Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
6. Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
7. Though daintily brought up, with patience more
8. Than savages could suffer: thou didst drink
9. The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
10. Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
11. The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
12. Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
13. The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
14. It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
15. Which some did die to look on: and all this--
16. It wounds thine honour that I speak it now--
17. Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
18. So much as lank'd not.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. 'Tis pity of him.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Let his shames quickly
3. Drive him to Rome: 'tis time we twain
4. Did show ourselves i' the field; and to that end
5. Assemble we immediate council: Pompey
6. Thrives in our idleness.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. To-morrow, Caesar,
3. I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly
4. Both what by sea and land I can be able
5. To front this present time.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Till which encounter,
3. It is my business too. Farewell.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Farewell, my lord: what you shall know meantime
3. Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,
4. To let me be partaker.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Doubt not, sir;
3. I knew it for my bond.

SCENE V. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Charmian!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Madam?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Ha, ha!
3. Give me to drink mandragora.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Why, madam?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. That I might sleep out this great gap of time
3. My Antony is away.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. You think of him too much.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O, 'tis treason!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Madam, I trust, not so.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Thou, eunuch Mardian!

1. MARDIAN
">
2. What's your highness' pleasure?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure
3. In aught an eunuch has: 'tis well for thee,
4. That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts
5. May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?

1. MARDIAN
">
2. Yes, gracious madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Indeed!

1. MARDIAN
">
2. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing
3. But what indeed is honest to be done:
4. Yet have I fierce affections, and think
5. What Venus did with Mars.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O Charmian,
3. Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?
4. Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
5. O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
6. Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou movest?
7. The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
8. And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
9. Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'
10. For so he calls me: now I feed myself
11. With most delicious poison. Think on me,
12. That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,
13. And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,
14. When thou wast here above the ground, I was
15. A morsel for a monarch: and great Pompey
16. Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;
17. There would he anchor his aspect and die
18. With looking on his life.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Sovereign of Egypt, hail!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!
3. Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath
4. With his tinct gilded thee.
5. How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Last thing he did, dear queen,
3. He kiss'd,--the last of many doubled kisses,--
4. This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Mine ear must pluck it thence.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. 'Good friend,' quoth he,
3. 'Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends
4. This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,
5. To mend the petty present, I will piece
6. Her opulent throne with kingdoms; all the east,
7. Say thou, shall call her mistress.' So he nodded,
8. And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
9. Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke
10. Was beastly dumb'd by him.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What, was he sad or merry?

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Like to the time o' the year between the extremes
3. Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O well-divided disposition! Note him,
3. Note him good Charmian, 'tis the man; but note him:
4. He was not sad, for he would shine on those
5. That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
6. Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay
7. In Egypt with his joy; but between both:
8. O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,
9. The violence of either thee becomes,
10. So does it no man else. Met'st thou my posts?

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
3. Why do you send so thick?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Who's born that day
3. When I forget to send to Antony,
4. Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
5. Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
6. Ever love Caesar so?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. O that brave Caesar!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Be choked with such another emphasis!
3. Say, the brave Antony.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. The valiant Caesar!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
3. If thou with Caesar paragon again
4. My man of men.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. By your most gracious pardon,
3. I sing but after you.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. My salad days,
3. When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
4. To say as I said then! But, come, away;
5. Get me ink and paper:
6. He shall have every day a several greeting,
7. Or I'll unpeople Egypt.

SCENE I. Messina. POMPEY's house.

1. POMPEY
">
2. If the great gods be just, they shall assist
3. The deeds of justest men.

1. MENECRATES
">
2. Know, worthy Pompey,
3. That what they do delay, they not deny.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays
3. The thing we sue for.

1. MENECRATES
">
2. We, ignorant of ourselves,
3. Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
4. Deny us for our good; so find we profit
5. By losing of our prayers.

1. POMPEY
">
2. I shall do well:
3. The people love me, and the sea is mine;
4. My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
5. Says it will come to the full. Mark Antony
6. In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make
7. No wars without doors: Caesar gets money where
8. He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,
9. Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,
10. Nor either cares for him.

1. MENAS
">
2. Caesar and Lepidus
3. Are in the field: a mighty strength they carry.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Where have you this? 'tis false.

1. MENAS
">
2. From Silvius, sir.

1. POMPEY
">
2. He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,
3. Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,
4. Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!
5. Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!
6. Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
7. Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks
8. Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite;
9. That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
10. Even till a Lethe'd dulness!
11. Enter VARRIUS
12. How now, Varrius!

1. VARRIUS
">
2. This is most certain that I shall deliver:
3. Mark Antony is every hour in Rome
4. Expected: since he went from Egypt 'tis
5. A space for further travel.

1. POMPEY
">
2. I could have given less matter
3. A better ear. Menas, I did not think
4. This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm
5. For such a petty war: his soldiership
6. Is twice the other twain: but let us rear
7. The higher our opinion, that our stirring
8. Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck
9. The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.

1. MENAS
">
2. I cannot hope
3. Caesar and Antony shall well greet together:
4. His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;
5. His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,
6. Not moved by Antony.

1. POMPEY
">
2. I know not, Menas,
3. How lesser enmities may give way to greater.
4. Were't not that we stand up against them all,
5. 'Twere pregnant they should square between
6. themselves;
7. For they have entertained cause enough
8. To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
9. May cement their divisions and bind up
10. The petty difference, we yet not know.
11. Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands
12. Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.
13. Come, Menas.

SCENE II. Rome. The house of LEPIDUS.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
3. And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
4. To soft and gentle speech.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I shall entreat him
3. To answer like himself: if Caesar move him,
4. Let Antony look over Caesar's head
5. And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
6. Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,
7. I would not shave't to-day.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. 'Tis not a time
3. For private stomaching.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Every time
3. Serves for the matter that is then born in't.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. But small to greater matters must give way.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Not if the small come first.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Your speech is passion:
3. But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
4. The noble Antony.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. And yonder, Caesar.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. If we compose well here, to Parthia:
3. Hark, Ventidius.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I do not know,
3. Mecaenas; ask Agrippa.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Noble friends,
3. That which combined us was most great, and let not
4. A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,
5. May it be gently heard: when we debate
6. Our trivial difference loud, we do commit
7. Murder in healing wounds: then, noble partners,
8. The rather, for I earnestly beseech,
9. Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
10. Nor curstness grow to the matter.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. 'Tis spoken well.
3. Were we before our armies, and to fight.
4. I should do thus.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Welcome to Rome.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Thank you.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Sit.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Sit, sir.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Nay, then.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I learn, you take things ill which are not so,
3. Or being, concern you not.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I must be laugh'd at,
3. If, or for nothing or a little, I
4. Should say myself offended, and with you
5. Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at, that I should
6. Once name you derogately, when to sound your name
7. It not concern'd me.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. My being in Egypt, Caesar,
3. What was't to you?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. No more than my residing here at Rome
3. Might be to you in Egypt: yet, if you there
4. Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt
5. Might be my question.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. How intend you, practised?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. You may be pleased to catch at mine intent
3. By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother
4. Made wars upon me; and their contestation
5. Was theme for you, you were the word of war.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. You do mistake your business; my brother never
3. Did urge me in his act: I did inquire it;
4. And have my learning from some true reports,
5. That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather
6. Discredit my authority with yours;
7. And make the wars alike against my stomach,
8. Having alike your cause? Of this my letters
9. Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,
10. As matter whole you have not to make it with,
11. It must not be with this.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. You praise yourself
3. By laying defects of judgment to me; but
4. You patch'd up your excuses.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Not so, not so;
3. I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,
4. Very necessity of this thought, that I,
5. Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,
6. Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars
7. Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
8. I would you had her spirit in such another:
9. The third o' the world is yours; which with a snaffle
10. You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Would we had all such wives, that the men might go
3. to wars with the women!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar
3. Made out of her impatience, which not wanted
4. Shrewdness of policy too, I grieving grant
5. Did you too much disquiet: for that you must
6. But say, I could not help it.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I wrote to you
3. When rioting in Alexandria; you
4. Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
5. Did gibe my missive out of audience.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Sir,
3. He fell upon me ere admitted: then
4. Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
5. Of what I was i' the morning: but next day
6. I told him of myself; which was as much
7. As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow
8. Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
9. Out of our question wipe him.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. You have broken
3. The article of your oath; which you shall never
4. Have tongue to charge me with.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Soft, Caesar!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. No,
3. Lepidus, let him speak:
4. The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
5. Supposing that I lack'd it. But, on, Caesar;
6. The article of my oath.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. To lend me arms and aid when I required them;
3. The which you both denied.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Neglected, rather;
3. And then when poison'd hours had bound me up
4. From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,
5. I'll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty
6. Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
7. Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,
8. To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;
9. For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
10. So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
11. To stoop in such a case.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. 'Tis noble spoken.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. If it might please you, to enforce no further
3. The griefs between ye: to forget them quite
4. Were to remember that the present need
5. Speaks to atone you.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Worthily spoken, Mecaenas.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the
3. instant, you may, when you hear no more words of
4. Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to
5. wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Go to, then; your considerate stone.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I do not much dislike the matter, but
3. The manner of his speech; for't cannot be
4. We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
5. So differing in their acts. Yet if I knew
6. What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge
7. O' the world I would pursue it.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Give me leave, Caesar,--

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Speak, Agrippa.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
3. Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony
4. Is now a widower.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Say not so, Agrippa:
3. If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
4. Were well deserved of rashness.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I am not married, Caesar: let me hear
3. Agrippa further speak.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. To hold you in perpetual amity,
3. To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
4. With an unslipping knot, take Antony
5. Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
6. No worse a husband than the best of men;
7. Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
8. That which none else can utter. By this marriage,
9. All little jealousies, which now seem great,
10. And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
11. Would then be nothing: truths would be tales,
12. Where now half tales be truths: her love to both
13. Would, each to other and all loves to both,
14. Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;
15. For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,
16. By duty ruminated.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Will Caesar speak?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd
3. With what is spoke already.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. What power is in Agrippa,
3. If I would say, 'Agrippa, be it so,'
4. To make this good?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. The power of Caesar, and
3. His power unto Octavia.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. May I never
3. To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,
4. Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand:
5. Further this act of grace: and from this hour
6. The heart of brothers govern in our loves
7. And sway our great designs!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. There is my hand.
3. A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
4. Did ever love so dearly: let her live
5. To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never
6. Fly off our loves again!

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Happily, amen!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;
3. For he hath laid strange courtesies and great
4. Of late upon me: I must thank him only,
5. Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;
6. At heel of that, defy him.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Time calls upon's:
3. Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
4. Or else he seeks out us.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Where lies he?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. About the mount Misenum.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. What is his strength by land?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Great and increasing: but by sea
3. He is an absolute master.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. So is the fame.
3. Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it:
4. Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we
5. The business we have talk'd of.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. With most gladness:
3. And do invite you to my sister's view,
4. Whither straight I'll lead you.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Let us, Lepidus,
3. Not lack your company.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Noble Antony,
3. Not sickness should detain me.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. Welcome from Egypt, sir.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas! My
3. honourable friend, Agrippa!

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Good Enobarbus!

1. MECAENAS
">
2. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well
3. digested. You stayed well by 't in Egypt.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and
3. made the night light with drinking.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. Eight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and
3. but twelve persons there; is this true?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more
3. monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to
3. her.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up
3. his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised
3. well for her.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I will tell you.
3. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
4. Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
5. Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
6. The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
7. Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
8. The water which they beat to follow faster,
9. As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
10. It beggar'd all description: she did lie
11. In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--
12. O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
13. The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
14. Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
15. With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
16. To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
17. And what they undid did.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. O, rare for Antony!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
3. So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
4. And made their bends adornings: at the helm
5. A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
6. Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
7. That yarely frame the office. From the barge
8. A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
9. Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
10. Her people out upon her; and Antony,
11. Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
12. Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
13. Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
14. And made a gap in nature.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Rare Egyptian!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
3. Invited her to supper: she replied,
4. It should be better he became her guest;
5. Which she entreated: our courteous Antony,
6. Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
7. Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,
8. And for his ordinary pays his heart
9. For what his eyes eat only.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Royal wench!
3. She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:
4. He plough'd her, and she cropp'd.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I saw her once
3. Hop forty paces through the public street;
4. And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,
5. That she did make defect perfection,
6. And, breathless, power breathe forth.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. Now Antony must leave her utterly.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Never; he will not:
3. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
4. Her infinite variety: other women cloy
5. The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
6. Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
7. Become themselves in her: that the holy priests
8. Bless her when she is riggish.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
3. The heart of Antony, Octavia is
4. A blessed lottery to him.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Let us go.
3. Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
4. Whilst you abide here.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Humbly, sir, I thank you.

SCENE III. The same. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. The world and my great office will sometimes
3. Divide me from your bosom.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. All which time
3. Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers
4. To them for you.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Good night, sir. My Octavia,
3. Read not my blemishes in the world's report:
4. I have not kept my square; but that to come
5. Shall all be done by the rule. Good night, dear lady.
6. Good night, sir.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Good night.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Now, sirrah; you do wish yourself in Egypt?

1. Soothsayer
">
2. Would I had never come from thence, nor you Thither!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. If you can, your reason?

1. Soothsayer
">
2. I see it in
3. My motion, have it not in my tongue: but yet
4. Hie you to Egypt again.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Say to me,
3. Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine?

1. Soothsayer
">
2. Caesar's.
3. Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:
4. Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is
5. Noble, courageous high, unmatchable,
6. Where Caesar's is not; but, near him, thy angel
7. Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd: therefore
8. Make space enough between you.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Speak this no more.

1. Soothsayer
">
2. To none but thee; no more, but when to thee.
3. If thou dost play with him at any game,
4. Thou art sure to lose; and, of that natural luck,
5. He beats thee 'gainst the odds: thy lustre thickens,
6. When he shines by: I say again, thy spirit
7. Is all afraid to govern thee near him;
8. But, he away, 'tis noble.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Get thee gone:
3. Say to Ventidius I would speak with him:
4. Exit Soothsayer
5. He shall to Parthia. Be it art or hap,
6. He hath spoken true: the very dice obey him;
7. And in our sports my better cunning faints
8. Under his chance: if we draw lots, he speeds;
9. His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
10. When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
11. Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt:
12. And though I make this marriage for my peace,
13. I' the east my pleasure lies.
14. Enter VENTIDIUS
15. O, come, Ventidius,
16. You must to Parthia: your commission's ready;
17. Follow me, and receive't.

SCENE IV. The same. A street.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Trouble yourselves no further: pray you, hasten
3. Your generals after.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Sir, Mark Antony
3. Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,
3. Which will become you both, farewell.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. We shall,
3. As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount
4. Before you, Lepidus.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Your way is shorter;
3. My purposes do draw me much about:
4. You'll win two days upon me.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. AGRIPPA
">
3. Sir, good success!

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Farewell.

SCENE V. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Give me some music; music, moody food
3. Of us that trade in love.

1. Attendants
">
2. The music, ho!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Let it alone; let's to billiards: come, Charmian.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. As well a woman with an eunuch play'd
3. As with a woman. Come, you'll play with me, sir?

1. MARDIAN
">
2. As well as I can, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. And when good will is show'd, though't come
3. too short,
4. The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now:
5. Give me mine angle; we'll to the river: there,
6. My music playing far off, I will betray
7. Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
8. Their slimy jaws; and, as I draw them up,
9. I'll think them every one an Antony,
10. And say 'Ah, ha! you're caught.'

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. 'Twas merry when
3. You wager'd on your angling; when your diver
4. Did hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he
5. With fervency drew up.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. That time,--O times!--
3. I laugh'd him out of patience; and that night
4. I laugh'd him into patience; and next morn,
5. Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed;
6. Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst
7. I wore his sword Philippan.
8. Enter a Messenger
9. O, from Italy
10. Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
11. That long time have been barren.

1. Messenger
">
2. Madam, madam,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Antonius dead!--If thou say so, villain,
3. Thou kill'st thy mistress: but well and free,
4. If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here
5. My bluest veins to kiss; a hand that kings
6. Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.

1. Messenger
">
2. First, madam, he is well.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Why, there's more gold.
3. But, sirrah, mark, we use
4. To say the dead are well: bring it to that,
5. The gold I give thee will I melt and pour
6. Down thy ill-uttering throat.

1. Messenger
">
2. Good madam, hear me.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Well, go to, I will;
3. But there's no goodness in thy face: if Antony
4. Be free and healthful,--so tart a favour
5. To trumpet such good tidings! If not well,
6. Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,
7. Not like a formal man.

1. Messenger
">
2. Will't please you hear me?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st:
3. Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
4. Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,
5. I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
6. Rich pearls upon thee.

1. Messenger
">
2. Madam, he's well.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Well said.

1. Messenger
">
2. And friends with Caesar.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Thou'rt an honest man.

1. Messenger
">
2. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Make thee a fortune from me.

1. Messenger
">
2. But yet, madam,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I do not like 'But yet,' it does allay
3. The good precedence; fie upon 'But yet'!
4. 'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth
5. Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,
6. Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,
7. The good and bad together: he's friends with Caesar:
8. In state of health thou say'st; and thou say'st free.

1. Messenger
">
2. Free, madam! no; I made no such report:
3. He's bound unto Octavia.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. For what good turn?

1. Messenger
">
2. For the best turn i' the bed.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I am pale, Charmian.

1. Messenger
">
2. Madam, he's married to Octavia.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. The most infectious pestilence upon thee!

1. Messenger
">
2. Good madam, patience.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What say you? Hence,
3. Strikes him again
4. Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
5. Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head:
6. She hales him up and down
7. Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,
8. Smarting in lingering pickle.

1. Messenger
">
2. Gracious madam,
3. I that do bring the news made not the match.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
3. And make thy fortunes proud: the blow thou hadst
4. Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
5. And I will boot thee with what gift beside
6. Thy modesty can beg.

1. Messenger
">
2. He's married, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Rogue, thou hast lived too long.

1. Messenger
">
2. Nay, then I'll run.
3. What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:
3. The man is innocent.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
3. Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
4. Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again:
5. Though I am mad, I will not bite him: call.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. He is afeard to come.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I will not hurt him.
3. Exit CHARMIAN
4. These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
5. A meaner than myself; since I myself
6. Have given myself the cause.
7. Re-enter CHARMIAN and Messenger
8. Come hither, sir.
9. Though it be honest, it is never good
10. To bring bad news: give to a gracious message.
11. An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell
12. Themselves when they be felt.

1. Messenger
">
2. I have done my duty.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Is he married?
3. I cannot hate thee worser than I do,
4. If thou again say 'Yes.'

1. Messenger
">
2. He's married, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. The gods confound thee! dost thou hold there still?

1. Messenger
">
2. Should I lie, madam?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O, I would thou didst,
3. So half my Egypt were submerged and made
4. A cistern for scaled snakes! Go, get thee hence:
5. Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
6. Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?

1. Messenger
">
2. I crave your highness' pardon.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. He is married?

1. Messenger
">
2. Take no offence that I would not offend you:
3. To punish me for what you make me do.
4. Seems much unequal: he's married to Octavia.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O, that his fault should make a knave of thee,
3. That art not what thou'rt sure of! Get thee hence:
4. The merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome
5. Are all too dear for me: lie they upon thy hand,
6. And be undone by 'em!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Good your highness, patience.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. In praising Antony, I have dispraised Caesar.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Many times, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I am paid for't now.
3. Lead me from hence:
4. I faint: O Iras, Charmian! 'tis no matter.
5. Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
6. Report the feature of Octavia, her years,
7. Her inclination, let him not leave out
8. The colour of her hair: bring me word quickly.
9. Exit ALEXAS
10. Let him for ever go:--let him not--Charmian,
11. Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
12. The other way's a Mars. Bid you Alexas
13. To MARDIAN
14. Bring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian,
15. But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.

SCENE VI. Near Misenum.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Your hostages I have, so have you mine;
3. And we shall talk before we fight.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Most meet
3. That first we come to words; and therefore have we
4. Our written purposes before us sent;
5. Which, if thou hast consider'd, let us know
6. If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword,
7. And carry back to Sicily much tall youth
8. That else must perish here.

1. POMPEY
">
2. To you all three,
3. The senators alone of this great world,
4. Chief factors for the gods, I do not know
5. Wherefore my father should revengers want,
6. Having a son and friends; since Julius Caesar,
7. Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,
8. There saw you labouring for him. What was't
9. That moved pale Cassius to conspire; and what
10. Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus,
11. With the arm'd rest, courtiers and beauteous freedom,
12. To drench the Capitol; but that they would
13. Have one man but a man? And that is it
14. Hath made me rig my navy; at whose burthen
15. The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant
16. To scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome
17. Cast on my noble father.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Take your time.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;
3. We'll speak with thee at sea: at land, thou know'st
4. How much we do o'er-count thee.

1. POMPEY
">
2. At land, indeed,
3. Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house:
4. But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
5. Remain in't as thou mayst.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Be pleased to tell us--
3. For this is from the present--how you take
4. The offers we have sent you.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. There's the point.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Which do not be entreated to, but weigh
3. What it is worth embraced.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. And what may follow,
3. To try a larger fortune.

1. POMPEY
">
2. You have made me offer
3. Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must
4. Rid all the sea of pirates; then, to send
5. Measures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon
6. To part with unhack'd edges, and bear back
7. Our targes undinted.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. MARK ANTONY
">
3. LEPIDUS
">
4. That's our offer.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Know, then,
3. I came before you here a man prepared
4. To take this offer: but Mark Antony
5. Put me to some impatience: though I lose
6. The praise of it by telling, you must know,
7. When Caesar and your brother were at blows,
8. Your mother came to Sicily and did find
9. Her welcome friendly.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I have heard it, Pompey;
3. And am well studied for a liberal thanks
4. Which I do owe you.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Let me have your hand:
3. I did not think, sir, to have met you here.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. The beds i' the east are soft; and thanks to you,
3. That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither;
4. For I have gain'd by 't.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Since I saw you last,
3. There is a change upon you.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Well, I know not
3. What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;
4. But in my bosom shall she never come,
5. To make my heart her vassal.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Well met here.

1. POMPEY
">
2. I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed:
3. I crave our composition may be written,
4. And seal'd between us.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. That's the next to do.

1. POMPEY
">
2. We'll feast each other ere we part; and let's
3. Draw lots who shall begin.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. That will I, Pompey.

1. POMPEY
">
2. No, Antony, take the lot: but, first
3. Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery
4. Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar
5. Grew fat with feasting there.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. You have heard much.

1. POMPEY
">
2. I have fair meanings, sir.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. And fair words to them.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Then so much have I heard:
3. And I have heard, Apollodorus carried--

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. No more of that: he did so.

1. POMPEY
">
2. What, I pray you?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.

1. POMPEY
">
2. I know thee now: how farest thou, soldier?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Well;
3. And well am like to do; for, I perceive,
4. Four feasts are toward.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Let me shake thy hand;
3. I never hated thee: I have seen thee fight,
4. When I have envied thy behavior.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Sir,
3. I never loved you much; but I ha' praised ye,
4. When you have well deserved ten times as much
5. As I have said you did.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Enjoy thy plainness,
3. It nothing ill becomes thee.
4. Aboard my galley I invite you all:
5. Will you lead, lords?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. MARK ANTONY
">
3. LEPIDUS
">
4. Show us the way, sir.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Come.

1. MENAS
">
2. Aside Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have
3. made this treaty.--You and I have known, sir.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. At sea, I think.

1. MENAS
">
2. We have, sir.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. You have done well by water.

1. MENAS
">
2. And you by land.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I will praise any man that will praise me; though it
3. cannot be denied what I have done by land.

1. MENAS
">
2. Nor what I have done by water.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Yes, something you can deny for your own
3. safety: you have been a great thief by sea.

1. MENAS
">
2. And you by land.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. There I deny my land service. But give me your
3. hand, Menas: if our eyes had authority, here they
4. might take two thieves kissing.

1. MENAS
">
2. All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. But there is never a fair woman has a true face.

1. MENAS
">
2. No slander; they steal hearts.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. We came hither to fight with you.

1. MENAS
">
2. For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking.
3. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. If he do, sure, he cannot weep't back again.

1. MENAS
">
2. You've said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony
3. here: pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Caesar's sister is called Octavia.

1. MENAS
">
2. True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.

1. MENAS
">
2. Pray ye, sir?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. 'Tis true.

1. MENAS
">
2. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would
3. not prophesy so.

1. MENAS
">
2. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the
3. marriage than the love of the parties.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I think so too. But you shall find, the band that
3. seems to tie their friendship together will be the
4. very strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a
5. holy, cold, and still conversation.

1. MENAS
">
2. Who would not have his wife so?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony.
3. He will to his Egyptian dish again: then shall the
4. sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar; and, as
5. I said before, that which is the strength of their
6. amity shall prove the immediate author of their
7. variance. Antony will use his affection where it is:
8. he married but his occasion here.

1. MENAS
">
2. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard?
3. I have a health for you.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.

1. MENAS
">
2. Come, let's away.

SCENE VII. On board POMPEY's galley, off Misenum.

1. First Servant
">
2. Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are
3. ill-rooted already: the least wind i' the world
4. will blow them down.

1. Second Servant
">
2. Lepidus is high-coloured.

1. First Servant
">
2. They have made him drink alms-drink.

1. Second Servant
">
2. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he
3. cries out 'No more;' reconciles them to his
4. entreaty, and himself to the drink.

1. First Servant
">
2. But it raises the greater war between him and
3. his discretion.

1. Second Servant
">
2. Why, this is to have a name in great men's
3. fellowship: I had as lief have a reed that will do
4. me no service as a partisan I could not heave.

1. First Servant
">
2. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen
3. to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be,
4. which pitifully disaster the cheeks.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. To OCTAVIUS CAESAR Thus do they, sir: they take
3. the flow o' the Nile
4. By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know,
5. By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
6. Or foison follow: the higher Nilus swells,
7. The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman
8. Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
9. And shortly comes to harvest.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. You've strange serpents there.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Ay, Lepidus.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
3. operation of your sun: so is your crocodile.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. They are so.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Sit,--and some wine! A health to Lepidus!

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Not till you have slept; I fear me you'll be in till then.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies'
3. pyramises are very goodly things; without
4. contradiction, I have heard that.

1. MENAS
">
2. Aside to POMPEY Pompey, a word.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Aside to MENAS Say in mine ear:
3. what is't?

1. MENAS
">
2. Aside to POMPEY Forsake thy seat, I do beseech
3. thee, captain,
4. And hear me speak a word.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Aside to MENAS Forbear me till anon.
3. This wine for Lepidus!

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. What manner o' thing is your crocodile?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad
3. as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is,
4. and moves with its own organs: it lives by that
5. which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of
6. it, it transmigrates.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. What colour is it of?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Of it own colour too.

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. 'Tis a strange serpent.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Will this description satisfy him?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a
3. very epicure.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Aside to MENAS Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of
3. that? away!
4. Do as I bid you. Where's this cup I call'd for?

1. MENAS
">
2. Aside to POMPEY If for the sake of merit thou
3. wilt hear me,
4. Rise from thy stool.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Aside to MENAS I think thou'rt mad.
3. The matter?

1. MENAS
">
2. I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Thou hast served me with much faith. What's else to say?
3. Be jolly, lords.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. These quick-sands, Lepidus,
3. Keep off them, for you sink.

1. MENAS
">
2. Wilt thou be lord of all the world?

1. POMPEY
">
2. What say'st thou?

1. MENAS
">
2. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That's twice.

1. POMPEY
">
2. How should that be?

1. MENAS
">
2. But entertain it,
3. And, though thou think me poor, I am the man
4. Will give thee all the world.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Hast thou drunk well?

1. MENAS
">
2. Now, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
3. Thou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove:
4. Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,
5. Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Show me which way.

1. MENAS
">
2. These three world-sharers, these competitors,
3. Are in thy vessel: let me cut the cable;
4. And, when we are put off, fall to their throats:
5. All there is thine.

1. POMPEY
">
2. Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
3. And not have spoke on't! In me 'tis villany;
4. In thee't had been good service. Thou must know,
5. 'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;
6. Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue
7. Hath so betray'd thine act: being done unknown,
8. I should have found it afterwards well done;
9. But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.

1. MENAS
">
2. Aside For this,
3. I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.
4. Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,
5. Shall never find it more.

1. POMPEY
">
2. This health to Lepidus!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Here's to thee, Menas!

1. MENAS
">
2. Enobarbus, welcome!

1. POMPEY
">
2. Fill till the cup be hid.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. There's a strong fellow, Menas.

1. MENAS
">
2. Why?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. A' bears the third part of the world, man; see'st
3. not?

1. MENAS
">
2. The third part, then, is drunk: would it were all,
3. That it might go on wheels!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Drink thou; increase the reels.

1. MENAS
">
2. Come.

1. POMPEY
">
2. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho?
3. Here is to Caesar!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I could well forbear't.
3. It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain,
4. And it grows fouler.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Be a child o' the time.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Possess it, I'll make answer:
3. But I had rather fast from all four days
4. Than drink so much in one.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Ha, my brave emperor!
3. To MARK ANTONY
4. Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals,
5. And celebrate our drink?

1. POMPEY
">
2. Let's ha't, good soldier.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Come, let's all take hands,
3. Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense
4. In soft and delicate Lethe.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. All take hands.
3. Make battery to our ears with the loud music:
4. The while I'll place you: then the boy shall sing;
5. The holding every man shall bear as loud
6. As his strong sides can volley.
7. Music plays. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS places them hand in hand
8. THE SONG.
9. Come, thou monarch of the vine,
10. Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
11. In thy fats our cares be drown'd,
12. With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd:
13. Cup us, till the world go round,
14. Cup us, till the world go round!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,
3. Let me request you off: our graver business
4. Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;
5. You see we have burnt our cheeks: strong Enobarb
6. Is weaker than the wine; and mine own tongue
7. Splits what it speaks: the wild disguise hath almost
8. Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.
9. Good Antony, your hand.

1. POMPEY
">
2. I'll try you on the shore.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. And shall, sir; give's your hand.

1. POMPEY
">
2. O Antony,
3. You have my father's house,--But, what? we are friends.
4. Come, down into the boat.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Take heed you fall not.
3. Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and MENAS
4. Menas, I'll not on shore.

1. MENAS
">
2. No, to my cabin.
3. These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!
4. Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
5. To these great fellows: sound and be hang'd, sound out!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Ho! says a' There's my cap.

1. MENAS
">
2. Ho! Noble captain, come.

SCENE I. A plain in Syria.

1. VENTIDIUS
">
2. Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck; and now
3. Pleased fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death
4. Make me revenger. Bear the king's son's body
5. Before our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,
6. Pays this for Marcus Crassus.

1. SILIUS
">
2. Noble Ventidius,
3. Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm,
4. The fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,
5. Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither
6. The routed fly: so thy grand captain Antony
7. Shall set thee on triumphant chariots and
8. Put garlands on thy head.

1. VENTIDIUS
">
2. O Silius, Silius,
3. I have done enough; a lower place, note well,
4. May make too great an act: for learn this, Silius;
5. Better to leave undone, than by our deed
6. Acquire too high a fame when him we serve's away.
7. Caesar and Antony have ever won
8. More in their officer than person: Sossius,
9. One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,
10. For quick accumulation of renown,
11. Which he achieved by the minute, lost his favour.
12. Who does i' the wars more than his captain can
13. Becomes his captain's captain: and ambition,
14. The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
15. Than gain which darkens him.
16. I could do more to do Antonius good,
17. But 'twould offend him; and in his offence
18. Should my performance perish.

1. SILIUS
">
2. Thou hast, Ventidius,
3. that
4. Without the which a soldier, and his sword,
5. Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony!

1. VENTIDIUS
">
2. I'll humbly signify what in his name,
3. That magical word of war, we have effected;
4. How, with his banners and his well-paid ranks,
5. The ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia
6. We have jaded out o' the field.

1. SILIUS
">
2. Where is he now?

1. VENTIDIUS
">
2. He purposeth to Athens: whither, with what haste
3. The weight we must convey with's will permit,
4. We shall appear before him. On there; pass along!

SCENE II. Rome. An ante-chamber in OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. What, are the brothers parted?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. They have dispatch'd with Pompey, he is gone;
3. The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps
4. To part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,
5. Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled
6. With the green sickness.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. 'Tis a noble Lepidus.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. A very fine one: O, how he loves Caesar!

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Caesar? Why, he's the Jupiter of men.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. What's Antony? The god of Jupiter.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Spake you of Caesar? How! the non-pareil!

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar:' go no further.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. But he loves Caesar best; yet he loves Antony:
3. Ho! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards,
4. poets, cannot
5. Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number, ho!
6. His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,
7. Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Both he loves.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. They are his shards, and he their beetle.
3. Trumpets within
4. So;
5. This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Good fortune, worthy soldier; and farewell.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. No further, sir.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. You take from me a great part of myself;
3. Use me well in 't. Sister, prove such a wife
4. As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band
5. Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,
6. Let not the piece of virtue, which is set
7. Betwixt us as the cement of our love,
8. To keep it builded, be the ram to batter
9. The fortress of it; for better might we
10. Have loved without this mean, if on both parts
11. This be not cherish'd.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Make me not offended
3. In your distrust.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I have said.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. You shall not find,
3. Though you be therein curious, the least cause
4. For what you seem to fear: so, the gods keep you,
5. And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends!
6. We will here part.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well:
3. The elements be kind to thee, and make
4. Thy spirits all of comfort! fare thee well.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. My noble brother!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. The April 's in her eyes: it is love's spring,
3. And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. Sir, look well to my husband's house; and--

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. What, Octavia?

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. I'll tell you in your ear.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can
3. Her heart inform her tongue,--the swan's
4. down-feather,
5. That stands upon the swell at full of tide,
6. And neither way inclines.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside to AGRIPPA Will Caesar weep?

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS He has a cloud in 's face.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside to AGRIPPA He were the worse for that,
3. were he a horse;
4. So is he, being a man.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Why, Enobarbus,
3. When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,
4. He cried almost to roaring; and he wept
5. When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside to AGRIPPA That year, indeed, he was
3. troubled with a rheum;
4. What willingly he did confound he wail'd,
5. Believe't, till I wept too.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. No, sweet Octavia,
3. You shall hear from me still; the time shall not
4. Out-go my thinking on you.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Come, sir, come;
3. I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love:
4. Look, here I have you; thus I let you go,
5. And give you to the gods.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Adieu; be happy!

1. LEPIDUS
">
2. Let all the number of the stars give light
3. To thy fair way!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Farewell, farewell!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Farewell!

SCENE III. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Where is the fellow?

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Half afeard to come.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Go to, go to.
3. Enter the Messenger as before
4. Come hither, sir.

1. ALEXAS
">
2. Good majesty,
3. Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you
4. But when you are well pleased.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. That Herod's head
3. I'll have: but how, when Antony is gone
4. Through whom I might command it? Come thou near.

1. Messenger
">
2. Most gracious majesty,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Didst thou behold Octavia?

1. Messenger
">
2. Ay, dread queen.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Where?

1. Messenger
">
2. Madam, in Rome;
3. I look'd her in the face, and saw her led
4. Between her brother and Mark Antony.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Is she as tall as me?

1. Messenger
">
2. She is not, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Didst hear her speak? is she shrill-tongued or low?

1. Messenger
">
2. Madam, I heard her speak; she is low-voiced.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. That's not so good: he cannot like her long.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Like her! O Isis! 'tis impossible.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I think so, Charmian: dull of tongue, and dwarfish!
3. What majesty is in her gait? Remember,
4. If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.

1. Messenger
">
2. She creeps:
3. Her motion and her station are as one;
4. She shows a body rather than a life,
5. A statue than a breather.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Is this certain?

1. Messenger
">
2. Or I have no observance.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Three in Egypt
3. Cannot make better note.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. He's very knowing;
3. I do perceive't: there's nothing in her yet:
4. The fellow has good judgment.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Excellent.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Guess at her years, I prithee.

1. Messenger
">
2. Madam,
3. She was a widow,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Widow! Charmian, hark.

1. Messenger
">
2. And I do think she's thirty.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Bear'st thou her face in mind? is't long or round?

1. Messenger
">
2. Round even to faultiness.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.
3. Her hair, what colour?

1. Messenger
">
2. Brown, madam: and her forehead
3. As low as she would wish it.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. There's gold for thee.
3. Thou must not take my former sharpness ill:
4. I will employ thee back again; I find thee
5. Most fit for business: go make thee ready;
6. Our letters are prepared.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. A proper man.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Indeed, he is so: I repent me much
3. That so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him,
4. This creature's no such thing.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Nothing, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. The man hath seen some majesty, and should know.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,
3. And serving you so long!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian:
3. But 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me
4. Where I will write. All may be well enough.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. I warrant you, madam.

SCENE IV. Athens. A room in MARK ANTONY's house.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that,--
3. That were excusable, that, and thousands more
4. Of semblable import,--but he hath waged
5. New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it
6. To public ear:
7. Spoke scantly of me: when perforce he could not
8. But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly
9. He vented them; most narrow measure lent me:
10. When the best hint was given him, he not took't,
11. Or did it from his teeth.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. O my good lord,
3. Believe not all; or, if you must believe,
4. Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady,
5. If this division chance, ne'er stood between,
6. Praying for both parts:
7. The good gods me presently,
8. When I shall pray, 'O bless my lord and husband!'
9. Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud,
10. 'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother,
11. Prays, and destroys the prayer; no midway
12. 'Twixt these extremes at all.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Gentle Octavia,
3. Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks
4. Best to preserve it: if I lose mine honour,
5. I lose myself: better I were not yours
6. Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested,
7. Yourself shall go between 's: the mean time, lady,
8. I'll raise the preparation of a war
9. Shall stain your brother: make your soonest haste;
10. So your desires are yours.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. Thanks to my lord.
3. The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak,
4. Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be
5. As if the world should cleave, and that slain men
6. Should solder up the rift.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. When it appears to you where this begins,
3. Turn your displeasure that way: for our faults
4. Can never be so equal, that your love
5. Can equally move with them. Provide your going;
6. Choose your own company, and command what cost
7. Your heart has mind to.

SCENE V. The same. Another room.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. How now, friend Eros!

1. EROS
">
2. There's strange news come, sir.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. What, man?

1. EROS
">
2. Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. This is old: what is the success?

1. EROS
">
2. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst
3. Pompey, presently denied him rivality; would not let
4. him partake in the glory of the action: and not
5. resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly
6. wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him: so
7. the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more;
3. And throw between them all the food thou hast,
4. They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?

1. EROS
">
2. He's walking in the garden--thus; and spurns
3. The rush that lies before him; cries, 'Fool Lepidus!'
4. And threats the throat of that his officer
5. That murder'd Pompey.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Our great navy's rigg'd.

1. EROS
">
2. For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius;
3. My lord desires you presently: my news
4. I might have told hereafter.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. 'Twill be naught:
3. But let it be. Bring me to Antony.

1. EROS
">
2. Come, sir.

SCENE VI. Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Contemning Rome, he has done all this, and more,
3. In Alexandria: here's the manner of 't:
4. I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,
5. Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
6. Were publicly enthroned: at the feet sat
7. Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,
8. And all the unlawful issue that their lust
9. Since then hath made between them. Unto her
10. He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her
11. Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
12. Absolute queen.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. This in the public eye?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I' the common show-place, where they exercise.
3. His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:
4. Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia.
5. He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
6. Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: she
7. In the habiliments of the goddess Isis
8. That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,
9. As 'tis reported, so.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. Let Rome be thus Inform'd.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Who, queasy with his insolence
3. Already, will their good thoughts call from him.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. The people know it; and have now received
3. His accusations.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Who does he accuse?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Caesar: and that, having in Sicily
3. Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him
4. His part o' the isle: then does he say, he lent me
5. Some shipping unrestored: lastly, he frets
6. That Lepidus of the triumvirate
7. Should be deposed; and, being, that we detain
8. All his revenue.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Sir, this should be answer'd.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. 'Tis done already, and the messenger gone.
3. I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel;
4. That he his high authority abused,
5. And did deserve his change: for what I have conquer'd,
6. I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia,
7. And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I
8. Demand the like.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. He'll never yield to that.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. That ever I should call thee castaway!

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Why have you stol'n upon us thus! You come not
3. Like Caesar's sister: the wife of Antony
4. Should have an army for an usher, and
5. The neighs of horse to tell of her approach
6. Long ere she did appear; the trees by the way
7. Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,
8. Longing for what it had not; nay, the dust
9. Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
10. Raised by your populous troops: but you are come
11. A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented
12. The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown,
13. Is often left unloved; we should have met you
14. By sea and land; supplying every stage
15. With an augmented greeting.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. Good my lord,
3. To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did
4. On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,
5. Hearing that you prepared for war, acquainted
6. My grieved ear withal; whereon, I begg'd
7. His pardon for return.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Which soon he granted,
3. Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. Do not say so, my lord.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. I have eyes upon him,
3. And his affairs come to me on the wind.
4. Where is he now?

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. My lord, in Athens.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra
3. Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire
4. Up to a whore; who now are levying
5. The kings o' the earth for war; he hath assembled
6. Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus,
7. Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king
8. Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;
9. King Malchus of Arabia; King of Pont;
10. Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king
11. Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,
12. The kings of Mede and Lycaonia,
13. With a more larger list of sceptres.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. Ay me, most wretched,
3. That have my heart parted betwixt two friends
4. That do afflict each other!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Welcome hither:
3. Your letters did withhold our breaking forth;
4. Till we perceived, both how you were wrong led,
5. And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart;
6. Be you not troubled with the time, which drives
7. O'er your content these strong necessities;
8. But let determined things to destiny
9. Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;
10. Nothing more dear to me. You are abused
11. Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods,
12. To do you justice, make them ministers
13. Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort;
14. And ever welcome to us.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Welcome, lady.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. Welcome, dear madam.
3. Each heart in Rome does love and pity you:
4. Only the adulterous Antony, most large
5. In his abominations, turns you off;
6. And gives his potent regiment to a trull,
7. That noises it against us.

1. OCTAVIA
">
2. Is it so, sir?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Most certain. Sister, welcome: pray you,
3. Be ever known to patience: my dear'st sister!

SCENE VII. Near Actium. MARK ANTONY's camp.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. But why, why, why?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,
3. And say'st it is not fit.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Well, is it, is it?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. If not denounced against us, why should not we
3. Be there in person?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside Well, I could reply:
3. If we should serve with horse and mares together,
4. The horse were merely lost; the mares would bear
5. A soldier and his horse.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What is't you say?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;
3. Take from his heart, take from his brain,
4. from's time,
5. What should not then be spared. He is already
6. Traduced for levity; and 'tis said in Rome
7. That Photinus an eunuch and your maids
8. Manage this war.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot
3. That speak against us! A charge we bear i' the war,
4. And, as the president of my kingdom, will
5. Appear there for a man. Speak not against it:
6. I will not stay behind.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Nay, I have done.
3. Here comes the emperor.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Is it not strange, Canidius,
3. That from Tarentum and Brundusium
4. He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea,
5. And take in Toryne? You have heard on't, sweet?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Celerity is never more admired
3. Than by the negligent.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. A good rebuke,
3. Which might have well becomed the best of men,
4. To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we
5. Will fight with him by sea.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. By sea! what else?

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Why will my lord do so?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. For that he dares us to't.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. So hath my lord dared him to single fight.

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia.
3. Where Caesar fought with Pompey: but these offers,
4. Which serve not for his vantage, be shakes off;
5. And so should you.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Your ships are not well mann'd;
3. Your mariners are muleters, reapers, people
4. Ingross'd by swift impress; in Caesar's fleet
5. Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought:
6. Their ships are yare; yours, heavy: no disgrace
7. Shall fall you for refusing him at sea,
8. Being prepared for land.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. By sea, by sea.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Most worthy sir, you therein throw away
3. The absolute soldiership you have by land;
4. Distract your army, which doth most consist
5. Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted
6. Your own renowned knowledge; quite forego
7. The way which promises assurance; and
8. Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard,
9. From firm security.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I'll fight at sea.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Our overplus of shipping will we burn;
3. And, with the rest full-mann'd, from the head of Actium
4. Beat the approaching Caesar. But if we fail,
5. We then can do't at land.
6. Enter a Messenger
7. Thy business?

1. Messenger
">
2. The news is true, my lord; he is descried;
3. Caesar has taken Toryne.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Can he be there in person? 'tis impossible;
3. Strange that power should be. Canidius,
4. Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,
5. And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship:
6. Away, my Thetis!
7. Enter a Soldier
8. How now, worthy soldier?

1. Soldier
">
2. O noble emperor, do not fight by sea;
3. Trust not to rotten planks: do you misdoubt
4. This sword and these my wounds? Let the Egyptians
5. And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we
6. Have used to conquer, standing on the earth,
7. And fighting foot to foot.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Well, well: away!

1. Soldier
">
2. By Hercules, I think I am i' the right.

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Soldier, thou art: but his whole action grows
3. Not in the power on't: so our leader's led,
4. And we are women's men.

1. Soldier
">
2. You keep by land
3. The legions and the horse whole, do you not?

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,
3. Publicola, and Caelius, are for sea:
4. But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's
5. Carries beyond belief.

1. Soldier
">
2. While he was yet in Rome,
3. His power went out in such distractions as
4. Beguiled all spies.

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Who's his lieutenant, hear you?

1. Soldier
">
2. They say, one Taurus.

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Well I know the man.

1. Messenger
">
2. The emperor calls Canidius.

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. With news the time's with labour, and throes forth,
3. Each minute, some.

SCENE VIII. A plain near Actium.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Taurus!

1. TAURUS
">
2. My lord?

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Strike not by land; keep whole: provoke not battle,
3. Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed
4. The prescript of this scroll: our fortune lies
5. Upon this jump.

SCENE IX. Another part of the plain.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Set we our squadrons on yond side o' the hill,
3. In eye of Caesar's battle; from which place
4. We may the number of the ships behold,
5. And so proceed accordingly.

SCENE X. Another part of the plain.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Naught, naught all, naught! I can behold no longer:
3. The Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,
4. With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder:
5. To see't mine eyes are blasted.

1. SCARUS
">
2. Gods and goddesses,
3. All the whole synod of them!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. What's thy passion!

1. SCARUS
">
2. The greater cantle of the world is lost
3. With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away
4. Kingdoms and provinces.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. How appears the fight?

1. SCARUS
">
2. On our side like the token'd pestilence,
3. Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,--
4. Whom leprosy o'ertake!--i' the midst o' the fight,
5. When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,
6. Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,
7. The breese upon her, like a cow in June,
8. Hoists sails and flies.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. That I beheld:
3. Mine eyes did sicken at the sight, and could not
4. Endure a further view.

1. SCARUS
">
2. She once being loof'd,
3. The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,
4. Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,
5. Leaving the fight in height, flies after her:
6. I never saw an action of such shame;
7. Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before
8. Did violate so itself.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Alack, alack!

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Our fortune on the sea is out of breath,
3. And sinks most lamentably. Had our general
4. Been what he knew himself, it had gone well:
5. O, he has given example for our flight,
6. Most grossly, by his own!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Ay, are you thereabouts?
3. Why, then, good night indeed.

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.

1. SCARUS
">
2. 'Tis easy to't; and there I will attend
3. What further comes.

1. CANIDIUS
">
2. To Caesar will I render
3. My legions and my horse: six kings already
4. Show me the way of yielding.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I'll yet follow
3. The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason
4. Sits in the wind against me.

SCENE XI. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;
3. It is ashamed to bear me! Friends, come hither:
4. I am so lated in the world, that I
5. Have lost my way for ever: I have a ship
6. Laden with gold; take that, divide it; fly,
7. And make your peace with Caesar.

1. All
">
2. Fly! not we.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards
3. To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;
4. I have myself resolved upon a course
5. Which has no need of you; be gone:
6. My treasure's in the harbour, take it. O,
7. I follow'd that I blush to look upon:
8. My very hairs do mutiny; for the white
9. Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them
10. For fear and doting. Friends, be gone: you shall
11. Have letters from me to some friends that will
12. Sweep your way for you. Pray you, look not sad,
13. Nor make replies of loathness: take the hint
14. Which my despair proclaims; let that be left
15. Which leaves itself: to the sea-side straightway:
16. I will possess you of that ship and treasure.
17. Leave me, I pray, a little: pray you now:
18. Nay, do so; for, indeed, I have lost command,
19. Therefore I pray you: I'll see you by and by.

1. EROS
">
2. Nay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him.

1. IRAS
">
2. Do, most dear queen.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Do! why: what else?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Let me sit down. O Juno!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. No, no, no, no, no.

1. EROS
">
2. See you here, sir?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. O fie, fie, fie!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Madam!

1. IRAS
">
2. Madam, O good empress!

1. EROS
">
2. Sir, sir,--

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Yes, my lord, yes; he at Philippi kept
3. His sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck
4. The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I
5. That the mad Brutus ended: he alone
6. Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practise had
7. In the brave squares of war: yet now--No matter.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Ah, stand by.

1. EROS
">
2. The queen, my lord, the queen.

1. IRAS
">
2. Go to him, madam, speak to him:
3. He is unqualitied with very shame.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Well then, sustain him: O!

1. EROS
">
2. Most noble sir, arise; the queen approaches:
3. Her head's declined, and death will seize her, but
4. Your comfort makes the rescue.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I have offended reputation,
3. A most unnoble swerving.

1. EROS
">
2. Sir, the queen.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See,
3. How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
4. By looking back what I have left behind
5. 'Stroy'd in dishonour.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O my lord, my lord,
3. Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
4. You would have follow'd.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Egypt, thou knew'st too well
3. My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
4. And thou shouldst tow me after: o'er my spirit
5. Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that
6. Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
7. Command me.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O, my pardon!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Now I must
3. To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
4. And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
5. With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleased,
6. Making and marring fortunes. You did know
7. How much you were my conqueror; and that
8. My sword, made weak by my affection, would
9. Obey it on all cause.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Pardon, pardon!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
3. All that is won and lost: give me a kiss;
4. Even this repays me. We sent our schoolmaster;
5. Is he come back? Love, I am full of lead.
6. Some wine, within there, and our viands! Fortune knows
7. We scorn her most when most she offers blows.

SCENE XII. Egypt. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Let him appear that's come from Antony.
3. Know you him?

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:
3. An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither
4. He sends so poor a pinion off his wing,
5. Which had superfluous kings for messengers
6. Not many moons gone by.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Approach, and speak.

1. EUPHRONIUS
">
2. Such as I am, I come from Antony:
3. I was of late as petty to his ends
4. As is the morn-dew on the myrtle-leaf
5. To his grand sea.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Be't so: declare thine office.

1. EUPHRONIUS
">
2. Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and
3. Requires to live in Egypt: which not granted,
4. He lessens his requests; and to thee sues
5. To let him breathe between the heavens and earth,
6. A private man in Athens: this for him.
7. Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness;
8. Submits her to thy might; and of thee craves
9. The circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,
10. Now hazarded to thy grace.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. For Antony,
3. I have no ears to his request. The queen
4. Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she
5. From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,
6. Or take his life there: this if she perform,
7. She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.

1. EUPHRONIUS
">
2. Fortune pursue thee!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Bring him through the bands.
3. Exit EUPHRONIUS
4. To THYREUS To try eloquence, now 'tis time: dispatch;
5. From Antony win Cleopatra: promise,
6. And in our name, what she requires; add more,
7. From thine invention, offers: women are not
8. In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure
9. The ne'er touch'd vestal: try thy cunning, Thyreus;
10. Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we
11. Will answer as a law.

1. THYREUS
">
2. Caesar, I go.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,
3. And what thou think'st his very action speaks
4. In every power that moves.

1. THYREUS
">
2. Caesar, I shall.

SCENE XIII. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What shall we do, Enobarbus?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Think, and die.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Is Antony or we in fault for this?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Antony only, that would make his will
3. Lord of his reason. What though you fled
4. From that great face of war, whose several ranges
5. Frighted each other? why should he follow?
6. The itch of his affection should not then
7. Have nick'd his captainship; at such a point,
8. When half to half the world opposed, he being
9. The meered question: 'twas a shame no less
10. Than was his loss, to course your flying flags,
11. And leave his navy gazing.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Prithee, peace.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Is that his answer?

1. EUPHRONIUS
">
2. Ay, my lord.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. The queen shall then have courtesy, so she
3. Will yield us up.

1. EUPHRONIUS
">
2. He says so.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Let her know't.
3. To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,
4. And he will fill thy wishes to the brim
5. With principalities.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. That head, my lord?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. To him again: tell him he wears the rose
3. Of youth upon him; from which the world should note
4. Something particular: his coin, ships, legions,
5. May be a coward's; whose ministers would prevail
6. Under the service of a child as soon
7. As i' the command of Caesar: I dare him therefore
8. To lay his gay comparisons apart,
9. And answer me declined, sword against sword,
10. Ourselves alone. I'll write it: follow me.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will
3. Unstate his happiness, and be staged to the show,
4. Against a sworder! I see men's judgments are
5. A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
6. Do draw the inward quality after them,
7. To suffer all alike. That he should dream,
8. Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will
9. Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdued
10. His judgment too.

1. Attendant
">
2. A messenger from CAESAR.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What, no more ceremony? See, my women!
3. Against the blown rose may they stop their nose
4. That kneel'd unto the buds. Admit him, sir.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside Mine honesty and I begin to square.
3. The loyalty well held to fools does make
4. Our faith mere folly: yet he that can endure
5. To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord
6. Does conquer him that did his master conquer
7. And earns a place i' the story.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Caesar's will?

1. THYREUS
">
2. Hear it apart.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. None but friends: say boldly.

1. THYREUS
">
2. So, haply, are they friends to Antony.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has;
3. Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master
4. Will leap to be his friend: for us, you know,
5. Whose he is we are, and that is, Caesar's.

1. THYREUS
">
2. So.
3. Thus then, thou most renown'd: Caesar entreats,
4. Not to consider in what case thou stand'st,
5. Further than he is Caesar.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Go on: right royal.

1. THYREUS
">
2. He knows that you embrace not Antony
3. As you did love, but as you fear'd him.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O!

1. THYREUS
">
2. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he
3. Does pity, as constrained blemishes,
4. Not as deserved.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. He is a god, and knows
3. What is most right: mine honour was not yielded,
4. But conquer'd merely.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside To be sure of that,
3. I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky,
4. That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for
5. Thy dearest quit thee.

1. THYREUS
">
2. Shall I say to Caesar
3. What you require of him? for he partly begs
4. To be desired to give. It much would please him,
5. That of his fortunes you should make a staff
6. To lean upon: but it would warm his spirits,
7. To hear from me you had left Antony,
8. And put yourself under his shrowd,
9. The universal landlord.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What's your name?

1. THYREUS
">
2. My name is Thyreus.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Most kind messenger,
3. Say to great Caesar this: in deputation
4. I kiss his conquering hand: tell him, I am prompt
5. To lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel:
6. Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear
7. The doom of Egypt.

1. THYREUS
">
2. 'Tis your noblest course.
3. Wisdom and fortune combating together,
4. If that the former dare but what it can,
5. No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay
6. My duty on your hand.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Your Caesar's father oft,
3. When he hath mused of taking kingdoms in,
4. Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place,
5. As it rain'd kisses.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Favours, by Jove that thunders!
3. What art thou, fellow?

1. THYREUS
">
2. One that but performs
3. The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest
4. To have command obey'd.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside You will be whipp'd.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Approach, there! Ah, you kite! Now, gods
3. and devils!
4. Authority melts from me: of late, when I cried 'Ho!'
5. Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth,
6. And cry 'Your will?' Have you no ears? I am
7. Antony yet.
8. Enter Attendants
9. Take hence this Jack, and whip him.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp
3. Than with an old one dying.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Moon and stars!
3. Whip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries
4. That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them
5. So saucy with the hand of she here,--what's her name,
6. Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,
7. Till, like a boy, you see him cringe his face,
8. And whine aloud for mercy: take him hence.

1. THYREUS
">
2. Mark Antony!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Tug him away: being whipp'd,
3. Bring him again: this Jack of Caesar's shall
4. Bear us an errand to him.
5. Exeunt Attendants with THYREUS
6. You were half blasted ere I knew you: ha!
7. Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome,
8. Forborne the getting of a lawful race,
9. And by a gem of women, to be abused
10. By one that looks on feeders?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Good my lord,--

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. You have been a boggler ever:
3. But when we in our viciousness grow hard--
4. O misery on't!--the wise gods seel our eyes;
5. In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us
6. Adore our errors; laugh at's, while we strut
7. To our confusion.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O, is't come to this?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I found you as a morsel cold upon
3. Dead Caesar's trencher; nay, you were a fragment
4. Of Cneius Pompey's; besides what hotter hours,
5. Unregister'd in vulgar fame, you have
6. Luxuriously pick'd out: for, I am sure,
7. Though you can guess what temperance should be,
8. You know not what it is.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Wherefore is this?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. To let a fellow that will take rewards
3. And say 'God quit you!' be familiar with
4. My playfellow, your hand; this kingly seal
5. And plighter of high hearts! O, that I were
6. Upon the hill of Basan, to outroar
7. The horned herd! for I have savage cause;
8. And to proclaim it civilly, were like
9. A halter'd neck which does the hangman thank
10. For being yare about him.
11. Re-enter Attendants with THYREUS
12. Is he whipp'd?

1. First Attendant
">
2. Soundly, my lord.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Cried he? and begg'd a' pardon?

1. First Attendant
">
2. He did ask favour.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. If that thy father live, let him repent
3. Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry
4. To follow Caesar in his triumph, since
5. Thou hast been whipp'd for following him: henceforth
6. The white hand of a lady fever thee,
7. Shake thou to look on 't. Get thee back to Caesar,
8. Tell him thy entertainment: look, thou say
9. He makes me angry with him; for he seems
10. Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,
11. Not what he knew I was: he makes me angry;
12. And at this time most easy 'tis to do't,
13. When my good stars, that were my former guides,
14. Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires
15. Into the abysm of hell. If he mislike
16. My speech and what is done, tell him he has
17. Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom
18. He may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture,
19. As he shall like, to quit me: urge it thou:
20. Hence with thy stripes, begone!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Have you done yet?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Alack, our terrene moon
3. Is now eclipsed; and it portends alone
4. The fall of Antony!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I must stay his time.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes
3. With one that ties his points?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Not know me yet?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Cold-hearted toward me?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Ah, dear, if I be so,
3. From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,
4. And poison it in the source; and the first stone
5. Drop in my neck: as it determines, so
6. Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!
7. Till by degrees the memory of my womb,
8. Together with my brave Egyptians all,
9. By the discandying of this pelleted storm,
10. Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile
11. Have buried them for prey!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I am satisfied.
3. Caesar sits down in Alexandria; where
4. I will oppose his fate. Our force by land
5. Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy too
6. Have knit again, and fleet, threatening most sea-like.
7. Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?
8. If from the field I shall return once more
9. To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood;
10. I and my sword will earn our chronicle:
11. There's hope in't yet.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. That's my brave lord!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breathed,
3. And fight maliciously: for when mine hours
4. Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives
5. Of me for jests; but now I'll set my teeth,
6. And send to darkness all that stop me. Come,
7. Let's have one other gaudy night: call to me
8. All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;
9. Let's mock the midnight bell.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. It is my birth-day:
3. I had thought to have held it poor: but, since my lord
4. Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. We will yet do well.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Call all his noble captains to my lord.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force
3. The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen;
4. There's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight,
5. I'll make death love me; for I will contend
6. Even with his pestilent scythe.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious,
3. Is to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood
4. The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still,
5. A diminution in our captain's brain
6. Restores his heart: when valour preys on reason,
7. It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek
8. Some way to leave him.

SCENE I. Before Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. He calls me boy; and chides, as he had power
3. To beat me out of Egypt; my messenger
4. He hath whipp'd with rods; dares me to personal combat,
5. Caesar to Antony: let the old ruffian know
6. I have many other ways to die; meantime
7. Laugh at his challenge.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. Caesar must think,
3. When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted
4. Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now
5. Make boot of his distraction: never anger
6. Made good guard for itself.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Let our best heads
3. Know, that to-morrow the last of many battles
4. We mean to fight: within our files there are,
5. Of those that served Mark Antony but late,
6. Enough to fetch him in. See it done:
7. And feast the army; we have store to do't,
8. And they have earn'd the waste. Poor Antony!

SCENE II. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. He will not fight with me, Domitius.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. No.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Why should he not?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,
3. He is twenty men to one.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. To-morrow, soldier,
3. By sea and land I'll fight: or I will live,
4. Or bathe my dying honour in the blood
5. Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.'

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Well said; come on.
3. Call forth my household servants: let's to-night
4. Be bounteous at our meal.
5. Enter three or four Servitors
6. Give me thy hand,
7. Thou hast been rightly honest;--so hast thou;--
8. Thou,--and thou,--and thou:--you have served me well,
9. And kings have been your fellows.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What means this?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside to CLEOPATRA 'Tis one of those odd
3. tricks which sorrow shoots
4. Out of the mind.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. And thou art honest too.
3. I wish I could be made so many men,
4. And all of you clapp'd up together in
5. An Antony, that I might do you service
6. So good as you have done.

1. All
">
2. The gods forbid!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night:
3. Scant not my cups; and make as much of me
4. As when mine empire was your fellow too,
5. And suffer'd my command.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What does he mean?

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Aside to CLEOPATRA To make his followers weep.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Tend me to-night;
3. May be it is the period of your duty:
4. Haply you shall not see me more; or if,
5. A mangled shadow: perchance to-morrow
6. You'll serve another master. I look on you
7. As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,
8. I turn you not away; but, like a master
9. Married to your good service, stay till death:
10. Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,
11. And the gods yield you for't!

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. What mean you, sir,
3. To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;
4. And I, an ass, am onion-eyed: for shame,
5. Transform us not to women.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Ho, ho, ho!
3. Now the witch take me, if I meant it thus!
4. Grace grow where those drops fall!
5. My hearty friends,
6. You take me in too dolorous a sense;
7. For I spake to you for your comfort; did desire you
8. To burn this night with torches: know, my hearts,
9. I hope well of to-morrow; and will lead you
10. Where rather I'll expect victorious life
11. Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come,
12. And drown consideration.

SCENE III. The same. Before the palace.

1. First Soldier
">
2. Brother, good night: to-morrow is the day.

1. Second Soldier
">
2. It will determine one way: fare you well.
3. Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?

1. First Soldier
">
2. Nothing. What news?

1. Second Soldier
">
2. Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you.

1. First Soldier
">
2. Well, sir, good night.

1. Second Soldier
">
2. Soldiers, have careful watch.

1. Third Soldier
">
2. And you. Good night, good night.

1. Fourth Soldier
">
2. Here we: and if to-morrow
3. Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope
4. Our landmen will stand up.

1. Third Soldier
">
2. 'Tis a brave army,
3. And full of purpose.

1. Fourth Soldier
">
2. Peace! what noise?

1. First Soldier
">
2. List, list!

1. Second Soldier
">
2. Hark!

1. First Soldier
">
2. Music i' the air.

1. Third Soldier
">
2. Under the earth.

1. Fourth Soldier
">
2. It signs well, does it not?

1. Third Soldier
">
2. No.

1. First Soldier
">
2. Peace, I say!
3. What should this mean?

1. Second Soldier
">
2. 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved,
3. Now leaves him.

1. First Soldier
">
2. Walk; let's see if other watchmen
3. Do hear what we do?

1. Second Soldier
">
2. How now, masters!

1. All
">
2. Speaking together How now!
3. How now! do you hear this?

1. First Soldier
">
2. Ay; is't not strange?

1. Third Soldier
">
2. Do you hear, masters? do you hear?

1. First Soldier
">
2. Follow the noise so far as we have quarter;
3. Let's see how it will give off.

1. All
">
2. Content. 'Tis strange.

SCENE IV. The same. A room in the palace.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Eros! mine armour, Eros!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Sleep a little.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. No, my chuck. Eros, come; mine armour, Eros!
3. Enter EROS with armour
4. Come good fellow, put mine iron on:
5. If fortune be not ours to-day, it is
6. Because we brave her: come.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Nay, I'll help too.
3. What's this for?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Ah, let be, let be! thou art
3. The armourer of my heart: false, false; this, this.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Sooth, la, I'll help: thus it must be.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Well, well;
3. We shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow?
4. Go put on thy defences.

1. EROS
">
2. Briefly, sir.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Is not this buckled well?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Rarely, rarely:
3. He that unbuckles this, till we do please
4. To daff't for our repose, shall hear a storm.
5. Thou fumblest, Eros; and my queen's a squire
6. More tight at this than thou: dispatch. O love,
7. That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st
8. The royal occupation! thou shouldst see
9. A workman in't.
10. Enter an armed Soldier
11. Good morrow to thee; welcome:
12. Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge:
13. To business that we love we rise betime,
14. And go to't with delight.

1. Soldier
">
2. A thousand, sir,
3. Early though't be, have on their riveted trim,
4. And at the port expect you.

1. Captain
">
2. The morn is fair. Good morrow, general.

1. All
">
2. Good morrow, general.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. 'Tis well blown, lads:
3. This morning, like the spirit of a youth
4. That means to be of note, begins betimes.
5. So, so; come, give me that: this way; well said.
6. Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me:
7. This is a soldier's kiss: rebukeable
8. Kisses her
9. And worthy shameful cheque it were, to stand
10. On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee
11. Now, like a man of steel. You that will fight,
12. Follow me close; I'll bring you to't. Adieu.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Please you, retire to your chamber.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Lead me.
3. He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might
4. Determine this great war in single fight!
5. Then Antony,--but now--Well, on.

SCENE V. Alexandria. MARK ANTONY's camp.

1. Soldier
">
2. The gods make this a happy day to Antony!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd
3. To make me fight at land!

1. Soldier
">
2. Hadst thou done so,
3. The kings that have revolted, and the soldier
4. That has this morning left thee, would have still
5. Follow'd thy heels.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Who's gone this morning?

1. Soldier
">
2. Who!
3. One ever near thee: call for Enobarbus,
4. He shall not hear thee; or from Caesar's camp
5. Say 'I am none of thine.'

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. What say'st thou?

1. Soldier
">
2. Sir,
3. He is with Caesar.

1. EROS
">
2. Sir, his chests and treasure
3. He has not with him.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Is he gone?

1. Soldier
">
2. Most certain.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;
3. Detain no jot, I charge thee: write to him--
4. I will subscribe--gentle adieus and greetings;
5. Say that I wish he never find more cause
6. To change a master. O, my fortunes have
7. Corrupted honest men! Dispatch.--Enobarbus!

SCENE VI. Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight:
3. Our will is Antony be took alive;
4. Make it so known.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Caesar, I shall.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. The time of universal peace is near:
3. Prove this a prosperous day, the three-nook'd world
4. Shall bear the olive freely.

1. Messenger
">
2. Antony
3. Is come into the field.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Go charge Agrippa
3. Plant those that have revolted in the van,
4. That Antony may seem to spend his fury
5. Upon himself.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Alexas did revolt; and went to Jewry on
3. Affairs of Antony; there did persuade
4. Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar,
5. And leave his master Antony: for this pains
6. Caesar hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest
7. That fell away have entertainment, but
8. No honourable trust. I have done ill;
9. Of which I do accuse myself so sorely,
10. That I will joy no more.

1. Soldier
">
2. Enobarbus, Antony
3. Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with
4. His bounty overplus: the messenger
5. Came on my guard; and at thy tent is now
6. Unloading of his mules.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I give it you.

1. Soldier
">
2. Mock not, Enobarbus.
3. I tell you true: best you safed the bringer
4. Out of the host; I must attend mine office,
5. Or would have done't myself. Your emperor
6. Continues still a Jove.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. I am alone the villain of the earth,
3. And feel I am so most. O Antony,
4. Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid
5. My better service, when my turpitude
6. Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart:
7. If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean
8. Shall outstrike thought: but thought will do't, I feel.
9. I fight against thee! No: I will go seek
10. Some ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits
11. My latter part of life.

SCENE VII. Field of battle between the camps.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. Retire, we have engaged ourselves too far:
3. Caesar himself has work, and our oppression
4. Exceeds what we expected.

1. SCARUS
">
2. O my brave emperor, this is fought indeed!
3. Had we done so at first, we had droven them home
4. With clouts about their heads.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Thou bleed'st apace.

1. SCARUS
">
2. I had a wound here that was like a T,
3. But now 'tis made an H.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. They do retire.

1. SCARUS
">
2. We'll beat 'em into bench-holes: I have yet
3. Room for six scotches more.

1. EROS
">
2. They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves
3. For a fair victory.

1. SCARUS
">
2. Let us score their backs,
3. And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind:
4. 'Tis sport to maul a runner.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I will reward thee
3. Once for thy spritely comfort, and ten-fold
4. For thy good valour. Come thee on.

1. SCARUS
">
2. I'll halt after.

SCENE VIII. Under the walls of Alexandria.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. We have beat him to his camp: run one before,
3. And let the queen know of our gests. To-morrow,
4. Before the sun shall see 's, we'll spill the blood
5. That has to-day escaped. I thank you all;
6. For doughty-handed are you, and have fought
7. Not as you served the cause, but as 't had been
8. Each man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.
9. Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends,
10. Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears
11. Wash the congealment from your wounds, and kiss
12. The honour'd gashes whole.
13. To SCARUS
14. Give me thy hand
15. Enter CLEOPATRA, attended
16. To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,
17. Make her thanks bless thee.
18. To CLEOPATRA
19. O thou day o' the world,
20. Chain mine arm'd neck; leap thou, attire and all,
21. Through proof of harness to my heart, and there
22. Ride on the pants triumphing!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Lord of lords!
3. O infinite virtue, comest thou smiling from
4. The world's great snare uncaught?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. My nightingale,
3. We have beat them to their beds. What, girl!
4. though grey
5. Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we
6. A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
7. Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;
8. Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand:
9. Kiss it, my warrior: he hath fought to-day
10. As if a god, in hate of mankind, had
11. Destroy'd in such a shape.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I'll give thee, friend,
3. An armour all of gold; it was a king's.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. He has deserved it, were it carbuncled
3. Like holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand:
4. Through Alexandria make a jolly march;
5. Bear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them:
6. Had our great palace the capacity
7. To camp this host, we all would sup together,
8. And drink carouses to the next day's fate,
9. Which promises royal peril. Trumpeters,
10. With brazen din blast you the city's ear;
11. Make mingle with rattling tabourines;
12. That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together,
13. Applauding our approach.

SCENE IX. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.

1. First Soldier
">
2. If we be not relieved within this hour,
3. We must return to the court of guard: the night
4. Is shiny; and they say we shall embattle
5. By the second hour i' the morn.

1. Second Soldier
">
2. This last day was
3. A shrewd one to's.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. O, bear me witness, night,--

1. Third Soldier
">
2. What man is this?

1. Second Soldier
">
2. Stand close, and list him.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,
3. When men revolted shall upon record
4. Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did
5. Before thy face repent!

1. First Soldier
">
2. Enobarbus!

1. Third Soldier
">
2. Peace!
3. Hark further.

1. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
">
2. O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
3. The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,
4. That life, a very rebel to my will,
5. May hang no longer on me: throw my heart
6. Against the flint and hardness of my fault:
7. Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,
8. And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,
9. Nobler than my revolt is infamous,
10. Forgive me in thine own particular;
11. But let the world rank me in register
12. A master-leaver and a fugitive:
13. O Antony! O Antony!

1. Second Soldier
">
2. Let's speak To him.

1. First Soldier
">
2. Let's hear him, for the things he speaks
3. May concern Caesar.

1. Third Soldier
">
2. Let's do so. But he sleeps.

1. First Soldier
">
2. Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his
3. Was never yet for sleep.

1. Second Soldier
">
2. Go we to him.

1. Third Soldier
">
2. Awake, sir, awake; speak to us.

1. Second Soldier
">
2. Hear you, sir?

1. First Soldier
">
2. The hand of death hath raught him.
3. Drums afar off
4. Hark! the drums
5. Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him
6. To the court of guard; he is of note: our hour
7. Is fully out.

1. Third Soldier
">
2. Come on, then;
3. He may recover yet.

SCENE X. Between the two camps.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Their preparation is to-day by sea;
3. We please them not by land.

1. SCARUS
">
2. For both, my lord.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I would they'ld fight i' the fire or i' the air;
3. We'ld fight there too. But this it is; our foot
4. Upon the hills adjoining to the city
5. Shall stay with us: order for sea is given;
6. They have put forth the haven
7. Where their appointment we may best discover,
8. And look on their endeavour.

SCENE XI. Another part of the same.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. But being charged, we will be still by land,
3. Which, as I take't, we shall; for his best force
4. Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales,
5. And hold our best advantage.

SCENE XII. Another part of the same.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Yet they are not join'd: where yond pine
3. does stand,
4. I shall discover all: I'll bring thee word
5. Straight, how 'tis like to go.

1. SCARUS
">
2. Swallows have built
3. In Cleopatra's sails their nests: the augurers
4. Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly,
5. And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony
6. Is valiant, and dejected; and, by starts,
7. His fretted fortunes give him hope, and fear,
8. Of what he has, and has not.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. All is lost;
3. This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me:
4. My fleet hath yielded to the foe; and yonder
5. They cast their caps up and carouse together
6. Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore!
7. 'tis thou
8. Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
9. Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
10. For when I am revenged upon my charm,
11. I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.
12. Exit SCARUS
13. O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
14. Fortune and Antony part here; even here
15. Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
16. That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
17. Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
18. On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd,
19. That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am:
20. O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,--
21. Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home;
22. Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,--
23. Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
24. Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.
25. What, Eros, Eros!
26. Enter CLEOPATRA
27. Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Why is my lord enraged against his love?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving,
3. And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee,
4. And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians:
5. Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot
6. Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown
7. For poor'st diminutives, for doits; and let
8. Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
9. With her prepared nails.
10. Exit CLEOPATRA
11. 'Tis well thou'rt gone,
12. If it be well to live; but better 'twere
13. Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death
14. Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!
15. The shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me,
16. Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage:
17. Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the moon;
18. And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club,
19. Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die:
20. To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall
21. Under this plot; she dies for't. Eros, ho!

SCENE XIII. Alexandria. Cleopatra's palace.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Help me, my women! O, he is more mad
3. Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly
4. Was never so emboss'd.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. To the monument!
3. There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead.
4. The soul and body rive not more in parting
5. Than greatness going off.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. To the monument!
3. Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself;
4. Say, that the last I spoke was 'Antony,'
5. And word it, prithee, piteously: hence, Mardian,
6. And bring me how he takes my death.
7. To the monument!

SCENE XIV. The same. Another room.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?

1. EROS
">
2. Ay, noble lord.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish;
3. A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
4. A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,
5. A forked mountain, or blue promontory
6. With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,
7. And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen
8. these signs;
9. They are black vesper's pageants.

1. EROS
">
2. Ay, my lord,

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. That which is now a horse, even with a thought
3. The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
4. As water is in water.

1. EROS
">
2. It does, my lord.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is
3. Even such a body: here I am Antony:
4. Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
5. I made these wars for Egypt: and the queen,--
6. Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine;
7. Which whilst it was mine had annex'd unto't
8. A million more, now lost,--she, Eros, has
9. Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory
10. Unto an enemy's triumph.
11. Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us
12. Ourselves to end ourselves.
13. Enter MARDIAN
14. O! thy vile lady!
15. She has robb'd me of my sword.

1. MARDIAN
">
2. No, Antony;
3. My mistress loved thee, and her fortunes mingled
4. With thine entirely.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!
3. She hath betray'd me and shall die the death.

1. MARDIAN
">
2. Death of one person can be paid but once,
3. And that she has discharged: what thou wouldst do
4. Is done unto thy hand: the last she spake
5. Was 'Antony! most noble Antony!'
6. Then in the midst a tearing groan did break
7. The name of Antony; it was divided
8. Between her heart and lips: she render'd life,
9. Thy name so buried in her.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Dead, then?

1. MARDIAN
">
2. Dead.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,
3. And we must sleep.
4. To MARDIAN
5. That thou depart'st hence safe,
6. Does pay thy labour richly; go.
7. Exit MARDIAN
8. Off, pluck off:
9. The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep
10. The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!
11. Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,
12. Crack thy frail case! Apace, Eros, apace.
13. No more a soldier: bruised pieces, go;
14. You have been nobly borne. From me awhile.
15. Exit EROS
16. I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
17. Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now
18. All length is torture: since the torch is out,
19. Lie down, and stray no farther: now all labour
20. Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles
21. Itself with strength: seal then, and all is done.
22. Eros!--I come, my queen:--Eros!--Stay for me:
23. Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,
24. And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:
25. Dido and her AEneas shall want troops,
26. And all the haunt be ours. Come, Eros, Eros!

1. EROS
">
2. What would my lord?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Since Cleopatra died,
3. I have lived in such dishonour, that the gods
4. Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword
5. Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back
6. With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack
7. The courage of a woman; less noble mind
8. Than she which by her death our Caesar tells
9. 'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,
10. That, when the exigent should come, which now
11. Is come indeed, when I should see behind me
12. The inevitable prosecution of
13. Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,
14. Thou then wouldst kill me: do't; the time is come:
15. Thou strikest not me, 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.
16. Put colour in thy cheek.

1. EROS
">
2. The gods withhold me!
3. Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,
4. Though enemy, lost aim, and could not?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Eros,
3. Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see
4. Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down
5. His corrigible neck, his face subdued
6. To penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat
7. Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded
8. His baseness that ensued?

1. EROS
">
2. I would not see't.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Come, then; for with a wound I must be cured.
3. Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn
4. Most useful for thy country.

1. EROS
">
2. O, sir, pardon me!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then
3. To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once;
4. Or thy precedent services are all
5. But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come.

1. EROS
">
2. Turn from me, then, that noble countenance,
3. Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Lo thee!

1. EROS
">
2. My sword is drawn.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Then let it do at once
3. The thing why thou hast drawn it.

1. EROS
">
2. My dear master,
3. My captain, and my emperor, let me say,
4. Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. 'Tis said, man; and farewell.

1. EROS
">
2. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Now, Eros.

1. EROS
">
2. Why, there then: thus I do escape the sorrow
3. Of Antony's death.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Thrice-nobler than myself!
3. Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what
4. I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros
5. Have by their brave instruction got upon me
6. A nobleness in record: but I will be
7. A bridegroom in my death, and run into't
8. As to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,
9. Thy master dies thy scholar: to do thus
10. Falling on his sword
11. I learn'd of thee. How! not dead? not dead?
12. The guard, ho! O, dispatch me!

1. First Guard
">
2. What's the noise?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I have done my work in, friends: O, make an end
3. Of what I have begun.

1. Second Guard
">
2. The star is fall'n.

1. First Guard
">
2. And time is at his period.

1. All
">
2. Alas, and woe!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Let him that loves me strike me dead.

1. First Guard
">
2. Not I.

1. Second Guard
">
2. Nor I.

1. Third Guard
">
2. Nor any one.

1. DERCETAS
">
2. Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.
3. This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,
4. Shall enter me with him.

1. DIOMEDES
">
2. Where's Antony?

1. DERCETAS
">
2. There, Diomed there.

1. DIOMEDES
">
2. Lives he?
3. Wilt thou not answer, man?

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword, and give me
3. Sufficing strokes for death.

1. DIOMEDES
">
2. Most absolute lord,
3. My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. When did she send thee?

1. DIOMEDES
">
2. Now, my lord.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Where is she?

1. DIOMEDES
">
2. Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear
3. Of what hath come to pass: for when she saw--
4. Which never shall be found--you did suspect
5. She had disposed with Caesar, and that your rage
6. Would not be purged, she sent you word she was dead;
7. But, fearing since how it might work, hath sent
8. Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come,
9. I dread, too late.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Too late, good Diomed: call my guard, I prithee.

1. DIOMEDES
">
2. What, ho, the emperor's guard! The guard, what, ho!
3. Come, your lord calls!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;
3. 'Tis the last service that I shall command you.

1. First Guard
">
2. Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear
3. All your true followers out.

1. All
">
2. Most heavy day!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate
3. To grace it with your sorrows: bid that welcome
4. Which comes to punish us, and we punish it
5. Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up:
6. I have led you oft: carry me now, good friends,
7. And have my thanks for all.

SCENE XV. The same. A monument.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O Charmian, I will never go from hence.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Be comforted, dear madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. No, I will not:
3. All strange and terrible events are welcome,
4. But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,
5. Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great
6. As that which makes it.
7. Enter, below, DIOMEDES
8. How now! is he dead?

1. DIOMEDES
">
2. His death's upon him, but not dead.
3. Look out o' the other side your monument;
4. His guard have brought him thither.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O sun,
3. Burn the great sphere thou movest in!
4. darkling stand
5. The varying shore o' the world. O Antony,
6. Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian, help, Iras, help;
7. Help, friends below; let's draw him hither.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Peace!
3. Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,
4. But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. So it should be, that none but Antony
3. Should conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
3. I here importune death awhile, until
4. Of many thousand kisses the poor last
5. I lay up thy lips.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I dare not, dear,--
3. Dear my lord, pardon,--I dare not,
4. Lest I be taken: not the imperious show
5. Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall
6. Be brooch'd with me; if knife, drugs,
7. serpents, have
8. Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe:
9. Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes
10. And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour
11. Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony,--
12. Help me, my women,--we must draw thee up:
13. Assist, good friends.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. O, quick, or I am gone.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!
3. Our strength is all gone into heaviness,
4. That makes the weight: had I great Juno's power,
5. The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,
6. And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little,--
7. Wishes were ever fools,--O, come, come, come;
8. They heave MARK ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA
9. And welcome, welcome! die where thou hast lived:
10. Quicken with kissing: had my lips that power,
11. Thus would I wear them out.

1. All
">
2. A heavy sight!

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. I am dying, Egypt, dying:
3. Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high,
3. That the false housewife Fortune break her wheel,
4. Provoked by my offence.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. One word, sweet queen:
3. Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. They do not go together.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. Gentle, hear me:
3. None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. My resolution and my hands I'll trust;
3. None about Caesar.

1. MARK ANTONY
">
2. The miserable change now at my end
3. Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
4. In feeding them with those my former fortunes
5. Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world,
6. The noblest; and do now not basely die,
7. Not cowardly put off my helmet to
8. My countryman,--a Roman by a Roman
9. Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going;
10. I can no more.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Noblest of men, woo't die?
3. Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide
4. In this dull world, which in thy absence is
5. No better than a sty? O, see, my women,
6. MARK ANTONY dies
7. The crown o' the earth doth melt. My lord!
8. O, wither'd is the garland of the war,
9. The soldier's pole is fall'n: young boys and girls
10. Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
11. And there is nothing left remarkable
12. Beneath the visiting moon.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. O, quietness, lady!

1. IRAS
">
2. She is dead too, our sovereign.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Lady!

1. IRAS
">
2. Madam!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. O madam, madam, madam!

1. IRAS
">
2. Royal Egypt, Empress!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Peace, peace, Iras!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded
3. By such poor passion as the maid that milks
4. And does the meanest chares. It were for me
5. To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
6. To tell them that this world did equal theirs
7. Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but naught;
8. Patience is scottish, and impatience does
9. Become a dog that's mad: then is it sin
10. To rush into the secret house of death,
11. Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
12. What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!
13. My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,
14. Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart:
15. We'll bury him; and then, what's brave,
16. what's noble,
17. Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
18. And make death proud to take us. Come, away:
19. This case of that huge spirit now is cold:
20. Ah, women, women! come; we have no friend
21. But resolution, and the briefest end.

SCENE I. Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;
3. Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks
4. The pauses that he makes.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Caesar, I shall.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Wherefore is that? and what art thou that darest
3. Appear thus to us?

1. DERCETAS
">
2. I am call'd Dercetas;
3. Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy
4. Best to be served: whilst he stood up and spoke,
5. He was my master; and I wore my life
6. To spend upon his haters. If thou please
7. To take me to thee, as I was to him
8. I'll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,
9. I yield thee up my life.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. What is't thou say'st?

1. DERCETAS
">
2. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. The breaking of so great a thing should make
3. A greater crack: the round world
4. Should have shook lions into civil streets,
5. And citizens to their dens: the death of Antony
6. Is not a single doom; in the name lay
7. A moiety of the world.

1. DERCETAS
">
2. He is dead, Caesar:
3. Not by a public minister of justice,
4. Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand,
5. Which writ his honour in the acts it did,
6. Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
7. Splitted the heart. This is his sword;
8. I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd
9. With his most noble blood.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Look you sad, friends?
3. The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings
4. To wash the eyes of kings.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. And strange it is,
3. That nature must compel us to lament
4. Our most persisted deeds.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. His taints and honours
3. Waged equal with him.

1. AGRIPPA
">
2. A rarer spirit never
3. Did steer humanity: but you, gods, will give us
4. Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touch'd.

1. MECAENAS
">
2. When such a spacious mirror's set before him,
3. He needs must see himself.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. O Antony!
3. I have follow'd thee to this; but we do lance
4. Diseases in our bodies: I must perforce
5. Have shown to thee such a declining day,
6. Or look on thine; we could not stall together
7. In the whole world: but yet let me lament,
8. With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
9. That thou, my brother, my competitor
10. In top of all design, my mate in empire,
11. Friend and companion in the front of war,
12. The arm of mine own body, and the heart
13. Where mine his thoughts did kindle,--that our stars,
14. Unreconciliable, should divide
15. Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends--
16. But I will tell you at some meeter season:
17. Enter an Egyptian
18. The business of this man looks out of him;
19. We'll hear him what he says. Whence are you?

1. Egyptian
">
2. A poor Egyptian yet. The queen my mistress,
3. Confined in all she has, her monument,
4. Of thy intents desires instruction,
5. That she preparedly may frame herself
6. To the way she's forced to.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Bid her have good heart:
3. She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,
4. How honourable and how kindly we
5. Determine for her; for Caesar cannot live
6. To be ungentle.

1. Egyptian
">
2. So the gods preserve thee!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say,
3. We purpose her no shame: give her what comforts
4. The quality of her passion shall require,
5. Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke
6. She do defeat us; for her life in Rome
7. Would be eternal in our triumph: go,
8. And with your speediest bring us what she says,
9. And how you find of her.

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. Caesar, I shall.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Gallus, go you along.
3. Exit GALLUS
4. Where's Dolabella,
5. To second Proculeius?

1. All
">
2. Dolabella!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Let him alone, for I remember now
3. How he's employ'd: he shall in time be ready.
4. Go with me to my tent; where you shall see
5. How hardly I was drawn into this war;
6. How calm and gentle I proceeded still
7. In all my writings: go with me, and see
8. What I can show in this.

SCENE II. Alexandria. A room in the monument.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. My desolation does begin to make
3. A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar;
4. Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,
5. A minister of her will: and it is great
6. To do that thing that ends all other deeds;
7. Which shackles accidents and bolts up change;
8. Which sleeps, and never palates more the dug,
9. The beggar's nurse and Caesar's.

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. Caesar sends greeting to the Queen of Egypt;
3. And bids thee study on what fair demands
4. Thou mean'st to have him grant thee.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What's thy name?

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. My name is Proculeius.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Antony
3. Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but
4. I do not greatly care to be deceived,
5. That have no use for trusting. If your master
6. Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him,
7. That majesty, to keep decorum, must
8. No less beg than a kingdom: if he please
9. To give me conquer'd Egypt for my son,
10. He gives me so much of mine own, as I
11. Will kneel to him with thanks.

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. Be of good cheer;
3. You're fall'n into a princely hand, fear nothing:
4. Make your full reference freely to my lord,
5. Who is so full of grace, that it flows over
6. On all that need: let me report to him
7. Your sweet dependency; and you shall find
8. A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness,
9. Where he for grace is kneel'd to.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Pray you, tell him
3. I am his fortune's vassal, and I send him
4. The greatness he has got. I hourly learn
5. A doctrine of obedience; and would gladly
6. Look him i' the face.

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. This I'll report, dear lady.
3. Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied
4. Of him that caused it.

1. GALLUS
">
2. You see how easily she may be surprised:
3. Here PROCULEIUS and two of the Guard ascend the monument by a ladder placed against a window, and, having descended, come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of the Guard unbar and open the gates
4. To PROCULEIUS and the Guard
5. Guard her till Caesar come.

1. IRAS
">
2. Royal queen!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. O Cleopatra! thou art taken, queen:

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Quick, quick, good hands.

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. Hold, worthy lady, hold:
3. Seizes and disarms her
4. Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this
5. Relieved, but not betray'd.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What, of death too,
3. That rids our dogs of languish?

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. Cleopatra,
3. Do not abuse my master's bounty by
4. The undoing of yourself: let the world see
5. His nobleness well acted, which your death
6. Will never let come forth.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Where art thou, death?
3. Come hither, come! come, come, and take a queen
4. Worthy many babes and beggars!

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. O, temperance, lady!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir;
3. If idle talk will once be necessary,
4. I'll not sleep neither: this mortal house I'll ruin,
5. Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I
6. Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court;
7. Nor once be chastised with the sober eye
8. Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up
9. And show me to the shouting varletry
10. Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
11. Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud
12. Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
13. Blow me into abhorring! rather make
14. My country's high pyramides my gibbet,
15. And hang me up in chains!

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. You do extend
3. These thoughts of horror further than you shall
4. Find cause in Caesar.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Proculeius,
3. What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,
4. And he hath sent for thee: for the queen,
5. I'll take her to my guard.

1. PROCULEIUS
">
2. So, Dolabella,
3. It shall content me best: be gentle to her.
4. To CLEOPATRA
5. To Caesar I will speak what you shall please,
6. If you'll employ me to him.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Say, I would die.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Most noble empress, you have heard of me?

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I cannot tell.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Assuredly you know me.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
3. You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;
4. Is't not your trick?

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. I understand not, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony:
3. O, such another sleep, that I might see
4. But such another man!

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. If it might please ye,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
3. A sun and moon, which kept their course,
4. and lighted
5. The little O, the earth.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Most sovereign creature,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
3. Crested the world: his voice was propertied
4. As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
5. But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
6. He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
7. There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
8. That grew the more by reaping: his delights
9. Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
10. The element they lived in: in his livery
11. Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
12. As plates dropp'd from his pocket.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Cleopatra!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Think you there was, or might be, such a man
3. As this I dream'd of?

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Gentle madam, no.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.
3. But, if there be, or ever were, one such,
4. It's past the size of dreaming: nature wants stuff
5. To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine
6. And Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,
7. Condemning shadows quite.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Hear me, good madam.
3. Your loss is as yourself, great; and you bear it
4. As answering to the weight: would I might never
5. O'ertake pursued success, but I do feel,
6. By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites
7. My very heart at root.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. I thank you, sir,
3. Know you what Caesar means to do with me?

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Nay, pray you, sir,--

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Though he be honourable,--

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. He'll lead me, then, in triumph?

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Madam, he will; I know't.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Which is the Queen of Egypt?

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. It is the emperor, madam.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Arise, you shall not kneel:
3. I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Sir, the gods
3. Will have it thus; my master and my lord
4. I must obey.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Take to you no hard thoughts:
3. The record of what injuries you did us,
4. Though written in our flesh, we shall remember
5. As things but done by chance.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Sole sir o' the world,
3. I cannot project mine own cause so well
4. To make it clear; but do confess I have
5. Been laden with like frailties which before
6. Have often shamed our sex.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Cleopatra, know,
3. We will extenuate rather than enforce:
4. If you apply yourself to our intents,
5. Which towards you are most gentle, you shall find
6. A benefit in this change; but if you seek
7. To lay on me a cruelty, by taking
8. Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself
9. Of my good purposes, and put your children
10. To that destruction which I'll guard them from,
11. If thereon you rely. I'll take my leave.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. And may, through all the world: 'tis yours; and we,
3. Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall
4. Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,
3. I am possess'd of: 'tis exactly valued;
4. Not petty things admitted. Where's Seleucus?

1. SELEUCUS
">
2. Here, madam.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. This is my treasurer: let him speak, my lord,
3. Upon his peril, that I have reserved
4. To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.

1. SELEUCUS
">
2. Madam,
3. I had rather seal my lips, than, to my peril,
4. Speak that which is not.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. What have I kept back?

1. SELEUCUS
">
2. Enough to purchase what you have made known.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve
3. Your wisdom in the deed.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. See, Caesar! O, behold,
3. How pomp is follow'd! mine will now be yours;
4. And, should we shift estates, yours would be mine.
5. The ingratitude of this Seleucus does
6. Even make me wild: O slave, of no more trust
7. Than love that's hired! What, goest thou back? thou shalt
8. Go back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes,
9. Though they had wings: slave, soulless villain, dog!
10. O rarely base!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Good queen, let us entreat you.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,
3. That thou, vouchsafing here to visit me,
4. Doing the honour of thy lordliness
5. To one so meek, that mine own servant should
6. Parcel the sum of my disgraces by
7. Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,
8. That I some lady trifles have reserved,
9. Immoment toys, things of such dignity
10. As we greet modern friends withal; and say,
11. Some nobler token I have kept apart
12. For Livia and Octavia, to induce
13. Their mediation; must I be unfolded
14. With one that I have bred? The gods! it smites me
15. Beneath the fall I have.
16. To SELEUCUS
17. Prithee, go hence;
18. Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits
19. Through the ashes of my chance: wert thou a man,
20. Thou wouldst have mercy on me.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Forbear, Seleucus.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Be it known, that we, the greatest, are misthought
3. For things that others do; and, when we fall,
4. We answer others' merits in our name,
5. Are therefore to be pitied.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Cleopatra,
3. Not what you have reserved, nor what acknowledged,
4. Put we i' the roll of conquest: still be't yours,
5. Bestow it at your pleasure; and believe,
6. Caesar's no merchant, to make prize with you
7. Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd;
8. Make not your thoughts your prisons: no, dear queen;
9. For we intend so to dispose you as
10. Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed, and sleep:
11. Our care and pity is so much upon you,
12. That we remain your friend; and so, adieu.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. My master, and my lord!

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Not so. Adieu.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
3. Be noble to myself: but, hark thee, Charmian.

1. IRAS
">
2. Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,
3. And we are for the dark.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Hie thee again:
3. I have spoke already, and it is provided;
4. Go put it to the haste.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Madam, I will.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Where is the queen?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Behold, sir.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Dolabella!

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Madam, as thereto sworn by your command,
3. Which my love makes religion to obey,
4. I tell you this: Caesar through Syria
5. Intends his journey; and within three days
6. You with your children will he send before:
7. Make your best use of this: I have perform'd
8. Your pleasure and my promise.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Dolabella,
3. I shall remain your debtor.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. I your servant,
3. Adieu, good queen; I must attend on Caesar.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Farewell, and thanks.
3. Exit DOLABELLA
4. Now, Iras, what think'st thou?
5. Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
6. In Rome, as well as I mechanic slaves
7. With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
8. Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
9. Rank of gross diet, shall be enclouded,
10. And forced to drink their vapour.

1. IRAS
">
2. The gods forbid!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
3. Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
4. Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians
5. Extemporally will stage us, and present
6. Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
7. Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
8. Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
9. I' the posture of a whore.

1. IRAS
">
2. O the good gods!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Nay, that's certain.

1. IRAS
">
2. I'll never see 't; for, I am sure, my nails
3. Are stronger than mine eyes.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Why, that's the way
3. To fool their preparation, and to conquer
4. Their most absurd intents.
5. Re-enter CHARMIAN
6. Now, Charmian!
7. Show me, my women, like a queen: go fetch
8. My best attires: I am again for Cydnus,
9. To meet Mark Antony: sirrah Iras, go.
10. Now, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed;
11. And, when thou hast done this chare, I'll give thee leave
12. To play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.
13. Wherefore's this noise?

1. Guard
">
2. Here is a rural fellow
3. That will not be denied your highness presence:
4. He brings you figs.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Let him come in.
3. Exit Guardsman
4. What poor an instrument
5. May do a noble deed! he brings me liberty.
6. My resolution's placed, and I have nothing
7. Of woman in me: now from head to foot
8. I am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon
9. No planet is of mine.

1. Guard
">
2. This is the man.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Avoid, and leave him.
3. Exit Guardsman
4. Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,
5. That kills and pains not?

1. Clown
">
2. Truly, I have him: but I would not be the party
3. that should desire you to touch him, for his biting
4. is immortal; those that do die of it do seldom or
5. never recover.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Rememberest thou any that have died on't?

1. Clown
">
2. Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of
3. them no longer than yesterday: a very honest woman,
4. but something given to lie; as a woman should not
5. do, but in the way of honesty: how she died of the
6. biting of it, what pain she felt: truly, she makes
7. a very good report o' the worm; but he that will
8. believe all that they say, shall never be saved by
9. half that they do: but this is most fallible, the
10. worm's an odd worm.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Get thee hence; farewell.

1. Clown
">
2. I wish you all joy of the worm.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Farewell.

1. Clown
">
2. You must think this, look you, that the worm will
3. do his kind.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Ay, ay; farewell.

1. Clown
">
2. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the
3. keeping of wise people; for, indeed, there is no
4. goodness in worm.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.

1. Clown
">
2. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is
3. not worth the feeding.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Will it eat me?

1. Clown
">
2. You must not think I am so simple but I know the
3. devil himself will not eat a woman: I know that a
4. woman is a dish for the gods, if the devil dress her
5. not. But, truly, these same whoreson devils do the
6. gods great harm in their women; for in every ten
7. that they make, the devils mar five.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Well, get thee gone; farewell.

1. Clown
">
2. Yes, forsooth: I wish you joy o' the worm.

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
3. Immortal longings in me: now no more
4. The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:
5. Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
6. Antony call; I see him rouse himself
7. To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
8. The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
9. To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
10. Now to that name my courage prove my title!
11. I am fire and air; my other elements
12. I give to baser life. So; have you done?
13. Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
14. Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.
15. Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies
16. Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
17. If thou and nature can so gently part,
18. The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
19. Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?
20. If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
21. It is not worth leave-taking.

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain; that I may say,
3. The gods themselves do weep!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. This proves me base:
3. If she first meet the curled Antony,
4. He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
5. Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou
6. mortal wretch,
7. To an asp, which she applies to her breast
8. With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
9. Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
10. Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak,
11. That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass
12. Unpolicied!

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. O eastern star!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. Peace, peace!
3. Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
4. That sucks the nurse asleep?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. O, break! O, break!

1. CLEOPATRA
">
2. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,--
3. O Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too.
4. Applying another asp to her arm
5. What should I stay--

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. In this vile world? So, fare thee well.
3. Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
4. A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;
5. And golden Phoebus never be beheld
6. Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;
7. I'll mend it, and then play.

1. First Guard
">
2. Where is the queen?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Speak softly, wake her not.

1. First Guard
">
2. Caesar hath sent--

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. Too slow a messenger.
3. Applies an asp
4. O, come apace, dispatch! I partly feel thee.

1. First Guard
">
2. Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguiled.

1. Second Guard
">
2. There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.

1. First Guard
">
2. What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?

1. CHARMIAN
">
2. It is well done, and fitting for a princess
3. Descended of so many royal kings.
4. Ah, soldier!

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. How goes it here?

1. Second Guard
">
2. All dead.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Caesar, thy thoughts
3. Touch their effects in this: thyself art coming
4. To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou
5. So sought'st to hinder.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. O sir, you are too sure an augurer;
3. That you did fear is done.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Bravest at the last,
3. She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal,
4. Took her own way. The manner of their deaths?
5. I do not see them bleed.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Who was last with them?

1. First Guard
">
2. A simple countryman, that brought her figs:
3. This was his basket.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Poison'd, then.

1. First Guard
">
2. O Caesar,
3. This Charmian lived but now; she stood and spake:
4. I found her trimming up the diadem
5. On her dead mistress; tremblingly she stood
6. And on the sudden dropp'd.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. O noble weakness!
3. If they had swallow'd poison, 'twould appear
4. By external swelling: but she looks like sleep,
5. As she would catch another Antony
6. In her strong toil of grace.

1. DOLABELLA
">
2. Here, on her breast,
3. There is a vent of blood and something blown:
4. The like is on her arm.

1. First Guard
">
2. This is an aspic's trail: and these fig-leaves
3. Have slime upon them, such as the aspic leaves
4. Upon the caves of Nile.

1. OCTAVIUS CAESAR
">
2. Most probable
3. That so she died; for her physician tells me
4. She hath pursued conclusions infinite
5. Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed;
6. And bear her women from the monument:
7. She shall be buried by her Antony:
8. No grave upon the earth shall clip in it
9. A pair so famous. High events as these
10. Strike those that make them; and their story is
11. No less in pity than his glory which
12. Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall
13. In solemn show attend this funeral;
14. And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see
15. High order in this great solemnity.

SCENE I. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death
3. anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to
4. whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

1. LAFEU
">
2. You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you,
3. sir, a father: he that so generally is at all times
4. good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose
5. worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather
6. than lack it where there is such abundance.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

1. LAFEU
">
2. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose
3. practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and
4. finds no other advantage in the process but only the
5. losing of hope by time.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. This young gentlewoman had a father,--O, that
3. 'had'! how sad a passage 'tis!--whose skill was
4. almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so
5. far, would have made nature immortal, and death
6. should have play for lack of work. Would, for the
7. king's sake, he were living! I think it would be
8. the death of the king's disease.

1. LAFEU
">
2. How called you the man you speak of, madam?

1. COUNTESS
">
2. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was
3. his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

1. LAFEU
">
2. He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very
3. lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he
4. was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge
5. could be set up against mortality.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

1. LAFEU
">
2. A fistula, my lord.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. I heard not of it before.

1. LAFEU
">
2. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman
3. the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

1. COUNTESS
">
2. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my
3. overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that
4. her education promises; her dispositions she
5. inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where
6. an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there
7. commendations go with pity; they are virtues and
8. traitors too; in her they are the better for their
9. simpleness; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise
3. in. The remembrance of her father never approaches
4. her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all
5. livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena;
6. go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect
7. a sorrow than have it.

1. HELENA
">
2. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
3. excessive grief the enemy to the living.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess
3. makes it soon mortal.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

1. LAFEU
">
2. How understand we that?

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
3. In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue
4. Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
5. Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
6. Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
7. Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
8. Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,
9. But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
10. That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
11. Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;
12. 'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
13. Advise him.

1. LAFEU
">
2. He cannot want the best
3. That shall attend his love.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. To HELENA The best wishes that can be forged in
3. your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable
4. to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of
3. your father.

1. HELENA
">
2. O, were that all! I think not on my father;
3. And these great tears grace his remembrance more
4. Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
5. I have forgot him: my imagination
6. Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
7. I am undone: there is no living, none,
8. If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
9. That I should love a bright particular star
10. And think to wed it, he is so above me:
11. In his bright radiance and collateral light
12. Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
13. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
14. The hind that would be mated by the lion
15. Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,
16. To see him every hour; to sit and draw
17. His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
18. In our heart's table; heart too capable
19. Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
20. But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
21. Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?
22. Enter PAROLLES
23. Aside
24. One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
25. And yet I know him a notorious liar,
26. Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
27. Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him,
28. That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
29. Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
30. Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Save you, fair queen!

1. HELENA
">
2. And you, monarch!

1. PAROLLES
">
2. No.

1. HELENA
">
2. And no.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Are you meditating on virginity?

1. HELENA
">
2. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you: let me
3. ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how
4. may we barricado it against him?

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Keep him out.

1. HELENA
">
2. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant,
3. in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some
4. warlike resistance.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will
3. undermine you and blow you up.

1. HELENA
">
2. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and
3. blowers up! Is there no military policy, how
4. virgins might blow up men?

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be
3. blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with
4. the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It
5. is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to
6. preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
7. increase and there was never virgin got till
8. virginity was first lost. That you were made of is
9. metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost
10. may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is
11. ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't!

1. HELENA
">
2. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the
3. rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,
4. is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible
5. disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin:
6. virginity murders itself and should be buried in
7. highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
8. offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites,
9. much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very
10. paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach.
11. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of
12. self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
13. canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but loose
14. by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make
15. itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the
16. principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!

1. HELENA
">
2. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it
3. likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with
4. lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't
5. while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request.
6. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out
7. of fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: just
8. like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not
9. now. Your date is better in your pie and your
10. porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity,
11. your old virginity, is like one of our French
12. withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry,
13. 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;
14. marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?

1. HELENA
">
2. Not my virginity yet
3. There shall your master have a thousand loves,
4. A mother and a mistress and a friend,
5. A phoenix, captain and an enemy,
6. A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
7. A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
8. His humble ambition, proud humility,
9. His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
10. His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
11. Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
12. That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he--
13. I know not what he shall. God send him well!
14. The court's a learning place, and he is one--

1. PAROLLES
">
2. What one, i' faith?

1. HELENA
">
2. That I wish well. 'Tis pity--

1. PAROLLES
">
2. What's pity?

1. HELENA
">
2. That wishing well had not a body in't,
3. Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
4. Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
5. Might with effects of them follow our friends,
6. And show what we alone must think, which never
7. Return us thanks.

1. Page
">
2. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I
3. will think of thee at court.

1. HELENA
">
2. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Under Mars, I.

1. HELENA
">
2. I especially think, under Mars.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Why under Mars?

1. HELENA
">
2. The wars have so kept you under that you must needs
3. be born under Mars.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. When he was predominant.

1. HELENA
">
2. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Why think you so?

1. HELENA
">
2. You go so much backward when you fight.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. That's for advantage.

1. HELENA
">
2. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety;
3. but the composition that your valour and fear makes
4. in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee
3. acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the
4. which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize
5. thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's
6. counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon
7. thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and
8. thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When
9. thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast
10. none, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband,
11. and use him as he uses thee; so, farewell.

1. HELENA
">
2. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
3. Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
4. Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
5. Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
6. What power is it which mounts my love so high,
7. That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
8. The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
9. To join like likes and kiss like native things.
10. Impossible be strange attempts to those
11. That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
12. What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
13. So show her merit, that did miss her love?
14. The king's disease--my project may deceive me,
15. But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.

SCENE II. Paris. The KING's palace.

1. KING
">
2. The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;
3. Have fought with equal fortune and continue
4. A braving war.

1. First Lord
">
2. So 'tis reported, sir.

1. KING
">
2. Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it
3. A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
4. With caution that the Florentine will move us
5. For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
6. Prejudicates the business and would seem
7. To have us make denial.

1. First Lord
">
2. His love and wisdom,
3. Approved so to your majesty, may plead
4. For amplest credence.

1. KING
">
2. He hath arm'd our answer,
3. And Florence is denied before he comes:
4. Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
5. The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
6. To stand on either part.

1. Second Lord
">
2. It well may serve
3. A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
4. For breathing and exploit.

1. KING
">
2. What's he comes here?

1. First Lord
">
2. It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
3. Young Bertram.

1. KING
">
2. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
3. Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
4. Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts
5. Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. My thanks and duty are your majesty's.

1. KING
">
2. I would I had that corporal soundness now,
3. As when thy father and myself in friendship
4. First tried our soldiership! He did look far
5. Into the service of the time and was
6. Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
7. But on us both did haggish age steal on
8. And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
9. To talk of your good father. In his youth
10. He had the wit which I can well observe
11. To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
12. Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
13. Ere they can hide their levity in honour;
14. So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
15. Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
16. His equal had awaked them, and his honour,
17. Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
18. Exception bid him speak, and at this time
19. His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
20. He used as creatures of another place
21. And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
22. Making them proud of his humility,
23. In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
24. Might be a copy to these younger times;
25. Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
26. But goers backward.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. His good remembrance, sir,
3. Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
4. So in approof lives not his epitaph
5. As in your royal speech.

1. KING
">
2. Would I were with him! He would always say--
3. Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
4. He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
5. To grow there and to bear,--'Let me not live,'--
6. This his good melancholy oft began,
7. On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
8. When it was out,--'Let me not live,' quoth he,
9. 'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
10. Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
11. All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
12. Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
13. Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd;
14. I after him do after him wish too,
15. Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
16. I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
17. To give some labourers room.

1. Second Lord
">
2. You are loved, sir:
3. They that least lend it you shall lack you first.

1. KING
">
2. I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, count,
3. Since the physician at your father's died?
4. He was much famed.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. Some six months since, my lord.

1. KING
">
2. If he were living, I would try him yet.
3. Lend me an arm; the rest have worn me out
4. With several applications; nature and sickness
5. Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
6. My son's no dearer.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. Thank your majesty.

SCENE III. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?

1. Steward
">
2. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I
3. wish might be found in the calendar of my past
4. endeavours; for then we wound our modesty and make
5. foul the clearness of our deservings, when of
6. ourselves we publish them.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah:
3. the complaints I have heard of you I do not all
4. believe: 'tis my slowness that I do not; for I know
5. you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability
6. enough to make such knaveries yours.

1. Clown
">
2. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Well, sir.

1. Clown
">
2. No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though
3. many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have
4. your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel
5. the woman and I will do as we may.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

1. Clown
">
2. I do beg your good will in this case.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. In what case?

1. Clown
">
2. In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no
3. heritage: and I think I shall never have the
4. blessing of God till I have issue o' my body; for
5. they say barnes are blessings.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

1. Clown
">
2. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on
3. by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Is this all your worship's reason?

1. Clown
">
2. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons such as they
3. are.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. May the world know them?

1. Clown
">
2. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and
3. all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry
4. that I may repent.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

1. Clown
">
2. I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have
3. friends for my wife's sake.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

1. Clown
">
2. You're shallow, madam, in great friends; for the
3. knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of.
4. He that ears my land spares my team and gives me
5. leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my
6. drudge: he that comforts my wife is the cherisher
7. of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh
8. and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my
9. flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses
10. my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to
11. be what they are, there were no fear in marriage;
12. for young Charbon the Puritan and old Poysam the
13. Papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in
14. religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl
15. horns together, like any deer i' the herd.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

1. Clown
">
2. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next
3. way:
4. For I the ballad will repeat,
5. Which men full true shall find;
6. Your marriage comes by destiny,
7. Your cuckoo sings by kind.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.

1. Steward
">
2. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to
3. you: of her I am to speak.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her;
3. Helen, I mean.

1. Clown
">
2. Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
3. Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
4. Fond done, done fond,
5. Was this King Priam's joy?
6. With that she sighed as she stood,
7. With that she sighed as she stood,
8. And gave this sentence then;
9. Among nine bad if one be good,
10. Among nine bad if one be good,
11. There's yet one good in ten.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.

1. Clown
">
2. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying
3. o' the song: would God would serve the world so all
4. the year! we'ld find no fault with the tithe-woman,
5. if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we
6. might have a good woman born but one every blazing
7. star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery
8. well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a' pluck
9. one.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.

1. Clown
">
2. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no
3. hurt done! Though honesty be no puritan, yet it
4. will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of
5. humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am
6. going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Well, now.

1. Steward
">
2. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and
3. she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully
4. make title to as much love as she finds: there is
5. more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid
6. her than she'll demand.

1. Steward
">
2. Madam, I was very late more near her than I think
3. she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate
4. to herself her own words to her own ears; she
5. thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any
6. stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son:
7. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put
8. such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no
9. god, that would not extend his might, only where
10. qualities were level; Dian no queen of virgins, that
11. would suffer her poor knight surprised, without
12. rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward.
13. This she delivered in the most bitter touch of
14. sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I
15. held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal;
16. sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns
17. you something to know it.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. You have discharged this honestly; keep it to
3. yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this
4. before, which hung so tottering in the balance that
5. I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you,
6. leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I thank you
7. for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon.
8. Exit Steward
9. Enter HELENA
10. Even so it was with me when I was young:
11. If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
12. Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
13. Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
14. It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
15. Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:
16. By our remembrances of days foregone,
17. Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
18. Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now.

1. HELENA
">
2. What is your pleasure, madam?

1. COUNTESS
">
2. You know, Helen,
3. I am a mother to you.

1. HELENA
">
2. Mine honourable mistress.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Nay, a mother:
3. Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'
4. Methought you saw a serpent: what's in 'mother,'
5. That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
6. And put you in the catalogue of those
7. That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen
8. Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds
9. A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
10. You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
11. Yet I express to you a mother's care:
12. God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
13. To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
14. That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
15. The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
16. Why? that you are my daughter?

1. HELENA
">
2. That I am not.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. I say, I am your mother.

1. HELENA
">
2. Pardon, madam;
3. The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
4. I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
5. No note upon my parents, his all noble:
6. My master, my dear lord he is; and I
7. His servant live, and will his vassal die:
8. He must not be my brother.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Nor I your mother?

1. HELENA
">
2. You are my mother, madam; would you were,--
3. So that my lord your son were not my brother,--
4. Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,
5. I care no more for than I do for heaven,
6. So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
7. But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:
3. God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
4. So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?
5. My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
6. The mystery of your loneliness, and find
7. Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross
8. You love my son; invention is ashamed,
9. Against the proclamation of thy passion,
10. To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
11. But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look thy cheeks
12. Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
13. See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
14. That in their kind they speak it: only sin
15. And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
16. That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
17. If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
18. If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
19. As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
20. Tell me truly.

1. HELENA
">
2. Good madam, pardon me!

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Do you love my son?

1. HELENA
">
2. Your pardon, noble mistress!

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Love you my son?

1. HELENA
">
2. Do not you love him, madam?

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond,
3. Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose
4. The state of your affection; for your passions
5. Have to the full appeach'd.

1. HELENA
">
2. Then, I confess,
3. Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
4. That before you, and next unto high heaven,
5. I love your son.
6. My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
7. Be not offended; for it hurts not him
8. That he is loved of me: I follow him not
9. By any token of presumptuous suit;
10. Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
11. Yet never know how that desert should be.
12. I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
13. Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
14. I still pour in the waters of my love
15. And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
16. Religious in mine error, I adore
17. The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
18. But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
19. Let not your hate encounter with my love
20. For loving where you do: but if yourself,
21. Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
22. Did ever in so true a flame of liking
23. Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
24. Was both herself and love: O, then, give pity
25. To her, whose state is such that cannot choose
26. But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
27. That seeks not to find that her search implies,
28. But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies!

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,--
3. To go to Paris?

1. HELENA
">
2. Madam, I had.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Wherefore? tell true.

1. HELENA
">
2. I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
3. You know my father left me some prescriptions
4. Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
5. And manifest experience had collected
6. For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
7. In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
8. As notes whose faculties inclusive were
9. More than they were in note: amongst the rest,
10. There is a remedy, approved, set down,
11. To cure the desperate languishings whereof
12. The king is render'd lost.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. This was your motive
3. For Paris, was it? speak.

1. HELENA
">
2. My lord your son made me to think of this;
3. Else Paris and the medicine and the king
4. Had from the conversation of my thoughts
5. Haply been absent then.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. But think you, Helen,
3. If you should tender your supposed aid,
4. He would receive it? he and his physicians
5. Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
6. They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
7. A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
8. Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
9. The danger to itself?

1. HELENA
">
2. There's something in't,
3. More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
4. Of his profession, that his good receipt
5. Shall for my legacy be sanctified
6. By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
7. But give me leave to try success, I'ld venture
8. The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure
9. By such a day and hour.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Dost thou believe't?

1. HELENA
">
2. Ay, madam, knowingly.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
3. Means and attendants and my loving greetings
4. To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home
5. And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
6. Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
7. What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.

SCENE I. Paris. The KING's palace.

1. KING
">
2. Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles
3. Do not throw from you: and you, my lords, farewell:
4. Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain, all
5. The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis received,
6. And is enough for both.

1. First Lord
">
2. 'Tis our hope, sir,
3. After well enter'd soldiers, to return
4. And find your grace in health.

1. KING
">
2. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
3. Will not confess he owes the malady
4. That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;
5. Whether I live or die, be you the sons
6. Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy,--
7. Those bated that inherit but the fall
8. Of the last monarchy,--see that you come
9. Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when
10. The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
11. That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell.

1. Second Lord
">
2. Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!

1. KING
">
2. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them:
3. They say, our French lack language to deny,
4. If they demand: beware of being captives,
5. Before you serve.

1. Both
">
2. Our hearts receive your warnings.

1. KING
">
2. Farewell. Come hither to me.

1. First Lord
">
2. O, my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!

1. PAROLLES
">
2. 'Tis not his fault, the spark.

1. Second Lord
">
2. O, 'tis brave wars!

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Most admirable: I have seen those wars.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. I am commanded here, and kept a coil with
3. 'Too young' and 'the next year' and ''tis too early.'

1. PAROLLES
">
2. An thy mind stand to't, boy, steal away bravely.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,
3. Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
4. Till honour be bought up and no sword worn
5. But one to dance with! By heaven, I'll steal away.

1. First Lord
">
2. There's honour in the theft.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Commit it, count.

1. Second Lord
">
2. I am your accessary; and so, farewell.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body.

1. First Lord
">
2. Farewell, captain.

1. Second Lord
">
2. Sweet Monsieur Parolles!

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good
3. sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall
4. find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain
5. Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here
6. on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword
7. entrenched it: say to him, I live; and observe his
8. reports for me.

1. First Lord
">
2. We shall, noble captain.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do?

1. BERTRAM
">
2. Stay: the king.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. To BERTRAM Use a more spacious ceremony to the
3. noble lords; you have restrained yourself within the
4. list of too cold an adieu: be more expressive to
5. them: for they wear themselves in the cap of the
6. time, there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and
7. move under the influence of the most received star;
8. and though the devil lead the measure, such are to
9. be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. And I will do so.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Kneeling Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.

1. KING
">
2. I'll fee thee to stand up.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon.
3. I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy,
4. And that at my bidding you could so stand up.

1. KING
">
2. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
3. And ask'd thee mercy for't.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Good faith, across: but, my good lord 'tis thus;
3. Will you be cured of your infirmity?

1. KING
">
2. No.

1. LAFEU
">
2. O, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox?
3. Yes, but you will my noble grapes, an if
4. My royal fox could reach them: I have seen a medicine
5. That's able to breathe life into a stone,
6. Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
7. With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch,
8. Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,
9. To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand,
10. And write to her a love-line.

1. KING
">
2. What 'her' is this?

1. LAFEU
">
2. Why, Doctor She: my lord, there's one arrived,
3. If you will see her: now, by my faith and honour,
4. If seriously I may convey my thoughts
5. In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
6. With one that, in her sex, her years, profession,
7. Wisdom and constancy, hath amazed me more
8. Than I dare blame my weakness: will you see her
9. For that is her demand, and know her business?
10. That done, laugh well at me.

1. KING
">
2. Now, good Lafeu,
3. Bring in the admiration; that we with thee
4. May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
5. By wondering how thou took'st it.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Nay, I'll fit you,
3. And not be all day neither.

1. KING
">
2. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Nay, come your ways.

1. KING
">
2. This haste hath wings indeed.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Nay, come your ways:
3. This is his majesty; say your mind to him:
4. A traitor you do look like; but such traitors
5. His majesty seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle,
6. That dare leave two together; fare you well.

1. KING
">
2. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?

1. HELENA
">
2. Ay, my good lord.
3. Gerard de Narbon was my father;
4. In what he did profess, well found.

1. KING
">
2. I knew him.

1. HELENA
">
2. The rather will I spare my praises towards him:
3. Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death
4. Many receipts he gave me: chiefly one.
5. Which, as the dearest issue of his practise,
6. And of his old experience the oily darling,
7. He bade me store up, as a triple eye,
8. Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so;
9. And hearing your high majesty is touch'd
10. With that malignant cause wherein the honour
11. Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
12. I come to tender it and my appliance
13. With all bound humbleness.

1. KING
">
2. We thank you, maiden;
3. But may not be so credulous of cure,
4. When our most learned doctors leave us and
5. The congregated college have concluded
6. That labouring art can never ransom nature
7. From her inaidible estate; I say we must not
8. So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
9. To prostitute our past-cure malady
10. To empirics, or to dissever so
11. Our great self and our credit, to esteem
12. A senseless help when help past sense we deem.

1. HELENA
">
2. My duty then shall pay me for my pains:
3. I will no more enforce mine office on you.
4. Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
5. A modest one, to bear me back a again.

1. KING
">
2. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful:
3. Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give
4. As one near death to those that wish him live:
5. But what at full I know, thou know'st no part,
6. I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

1. HELENA
">
2. What I can do can do no hurt to try,
3. Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.
4. He that of greatest works is finisher
5. Oft does them by the weakest minister:
6. So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
7. When judges have been babes; great floods have flown
8. From simple sources, and great seas have dried
9. When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
10. Oft expectation fails and most oft there
11. Where most it promises, and oft it hits
12. Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.

1. KING
">
2. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;
3. Thy pains not used must by thyself be paid:
4. Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.

1. HELENA
">
2. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd:
3. It is not so with Him that all things knows
4. As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;
5. But most it is presumption in us when
6. The help of heaven we count the act of men.
7. Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
8. Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
9. I am not an impostor that proclaim
10. Myself against the level of mine aim;
11. But know I think and think I know most sure
12. My art is not past power nor you past cure.

1. KING
">
2. Are thou so confident? within what space
3. Hopest thou my cure?

1. HELENA
">
2. The great'st grace lending grace
3. Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
4. Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
5. Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
6. Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,
7. Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
8. Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,
9. What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
10. Health shall live free and sickness freely die.

1. KING
">
2. Upon thy certainty and confidence
3. What darest thou venture?

1. HELENA
">
2. Tax of impudence,
3. A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame
4. Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name
5. Sear'd otherwise; nay, worse--if worse--extended
6. With vilest torture let my life be ended.

1. KING
">
2. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
3. His powerful sound within an organ weak:
4. And what impossibility would slay
5. In common sense, sense saves another way.
6. Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
7. Worth name of life in thee hath estimate,
8. Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
9. That happiness and prime can happy call:
10. Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
11. Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.
12. Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,
13. That ministers thine own death if I die.

1. HELENA
">
2. If I break time, or flinch in property
3. Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,
4. And well deserved: not helping, death's my fee;
5. But, if I help, what do you promise me?

1. KING
">
2. Make thy demand.

1. HELENA
">
2. But will you make it even?

1. KING
">
2. Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

1. HELENA
">
2. Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand
3. What husband in thy power I will command:
4. Exempted be from me the arrogance
5. To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
6. My low and humble name to propagate
7. With any branch or image of thy state;
8. But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
9. Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

1. KING
">
2. Here is my hand; the premises observed,
3. Thy will by my performance shall be served:
4. So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
5. Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely.
6. More should I question thee, and more I must,
7. Though more to know could not be more to trust,
8. From whence thou camest, how tended on: but rest
9. Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.
10. Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
11. As high as word, my deed shall match thy meed.

SCENE II. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of
3. your breeding.

1. Clown
">
2. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I
3. know my business is but to the court.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. To the court! why, what place make you special,
3. when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!

1. Clown
">
2. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he
3. may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make
4. a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand and say nothing,
5. has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed
6. such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the
7. court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all
8. men.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all
3. questions.

1. Clown
">
2. It is like a barber's chair that fits all buttocks,
3. the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn
4. buttock, or any buttock.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

1. Clown
">
2. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney,
3. as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib's
4. rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove
5. Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his
6. hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen
7. to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the
8. friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all
3. questions?

1. Clown
">
2. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it
3. will fit any question.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that
3. must fit all demands.

1. Clown
">
2. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned
3. should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that
4. belongs to't. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall
5. do you no harm to learn.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in
3. question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I
4. pray you, sir, are you a courtier?

1. Clown
">
2. O Lord, sir! There's a simple putting off. More,
3. more, a hundred of them.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

1. Clown
">
2. O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

1. Clown
">
2. O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

1. Clown
">
2. O Lord, sir! spare not me.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Do you cry, 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and
3. 'spare not me?' Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very
4. sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well
5. to a whipping, if you were but bound to't.

1. Clown
">
2. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord,
3. sir!' I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. I play the noble housewife with the time
3. To entertain't so merrily with a fool.

1. Clown
">
2. O Lord, sir! why, there't serves well again.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this,
3. And urge her to a present answer back:
4. Commend me to my kinsmen and my son:
5. This is not much.

1. Clown
">
2. Not much commendation to them.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Not much employment for you: you understand me?

1. Clown
">
2. Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs.

1. COUNTESS
">
2. Haste you again.

SCENE III. Paris. The KING's palace.

1. LAFEU
">
2. They say miracles are past; and we have our
3. philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar,
4. things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that
5. we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves
6. into seeming knowledge, when we should submit
7. ourselves to an unknown fear.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath
3. shot out in our latter times.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. And so 'tis.

1. LAFEU
">
2. To be relinquish'd of the artists,--

1. PAROLLES
">
2. So I say.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Both of Galen and Paracelsus.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. So I say.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Of all the learned and authentic fellows,--

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Right; so I say.

1. LAFEU
">
2. That gave him out incurable,--

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Not to be helped,--

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Right; as 'twere, a man assured of a--

1. LAFEU
">
2. Uncertain life, and sure death.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Just, you say well; so would I have said.

1. LAFEU
">
2. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing, you
3. shall read it in--what do you call there?

1. LAFEU
">
2. A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. That's it; I would have said the very same.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Why, your dolphin is not lustier: 'fore me,
3. I speak in respect--

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange, that is the
3. brief and the tedious of it; and he's of a most
4. facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the--

1. LAFEU
">
2. Very hand of heaven.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Ay, so I say.

1. LAFEU
">
2. In a most weak--
3. pausing
4. and debile minister, great power, great
5. transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a
6. further use to be made than alone the recovery of
7. the king, as to be--
8. pausing
9. generally thankful.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Lustig, as the Dutchman says: I'll like a maid the
3. better, whilst I have a tooth in my head: why, he's
4. able to lead her a coranto.

1. PAROLLES
">
2. Mort du vinaigre! is not this Helen?

1. LAFEU
">
2. 'Fore God, I think so.

1. KING
">
2. Go, call before me all the lords in court.
3. Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;
4. And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense
5. Thou hast repeal'd, a second time receive
6. The confirmation of my promised gift,
7. Which but attends thy naming.
8. Enter three or four Lords
9. Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel
10. Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
11. O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
12. I have to use: thy frank election make;
13. Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.

1. HELENA
">
2. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
3. Fall, when Love please! marry, to each, but one!

1. LAFEU
">
2. I'ld give bay Curtal and his furniture,
3. My mouth no more were broken than these boys',
4. And writ as little beard.

1. KING
">
2. Peruse them well:
3. Not one of those but had a noble father.

1. HELENA
">
2. Gentlemen,
3. Heaven hath through me restored the king to health.

1. All
">
2. We understand it, and thank heaven for you.

1. HELENA
">
2. I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest,
3. That I protest I simply am a maid.
4. Please it your majesty, I have done already:
5. The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me,
6. 'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,
7. Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever;
8. We'll ne'er come there again.'

1. KING
">
2. Make choice; and, see,
3. Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

1. HELENA
">
2. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
3. And to imperial Love, that god most high,
4. Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?

1. First Lord
">
2. And grant it.

1. HELENA
">
2. Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

1. LAFEU
">
2. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace
3. for my life.

1. HELENA
">
2. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,
3. Before I speak, too threateningly replies:
4. Love make your fortunes twenty times above
5. Her that so wishes and her humble love!

1. Second Lord
">
2. No better, if you please.

1. HELENA
">
2. My wish receive,
3. Which great Love grant! and so, I take my leave.

1. LAFEU
">
2. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine,
3. I'd have them whipped; or I would send them to the
4. Turk, to make eunuchs of.

1. HELENA
">
2. Be not afraid that I your hand should take;
3. I'll never do you wrong for your own sake:
4. Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed
5. Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

1. LAFEU
">
2. These boys are boys of ice, they'll none have her:
3. sure, they are bastards to the English; the French
4. ne'er got 'em.

1. HELENA
">
2. You are too young, too happy, and too good,
3. To make yourself a son out of my blood.

1. Fourth Lord
">
2. Fair one, I think not so.

1. LAFEU
">
2. There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk
3. wine: but if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth
4. of fourteen; I have known thee already.

1. HELENA
">
2. To BERTRAM I dare not say I take you; but I give
3. Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
4. Into your guiding power. This is the man.

1. KING
">
2. Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your highness,
3. In such a business give me leave to use
4. The help of mine own eyes.

1. KING
">
2. Know'st thou not, Bertram,
3. What she has done for me?

1. BERTRAM
">
2. Yes, my good lord;
3. But never hope to know why I should marry her.

1. KING
">
2. Thou know'st she has raised me from my sickly bed.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
3. Must answer for your raising? I know her well:
4. She had her breeding at my father's charge.
5. A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain
6. Rather corrupt me ever!

1. KING
">
2. 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which
3. I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
4. Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
5. Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
6. In differences so mighty. If she be
7. All that is virtuous, save what thou dislikest,
8. A poor physician's daughter, thou dislikest
9. Of virtue for the name: but do not so:
10. From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
11. The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
12. Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,
13. It is a dropsied honour. Good alone
14. Is good without a name. Vileness is so:
15. The property by what it is should go,
16. Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
17. In these to nature she's immediate heir,
18. And these breed honour: that is honour's scorn,
19. Which challenges itself as honour's born
20. And is not like the sire: honours thrive,
21. When rather from our acts we them derive
22. Than our foregoers: the mere word's a slave
23. Debosh'd on every tomb, on every grave
24. A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb
25. Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
26. Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?
27. If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
28. I can create the rest: virtue and she
29. Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.

1. BERTRAM
">
2. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't.

1. KING
">
2. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.

1. HELENA
">
2. That you are well restored, my lord, I'm glad:
3. Let the rest go.

1. KING
">
2. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,
3. I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
4. Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift;
5. That dost in vile misprision shackle up
6. My love and her desert; that canst not dream,
7. We, poising us in her defective scale,
8. Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know,
9. It is in us to plant thine honour where
10. We please to have it grow. Cheque thy contempt:
11. Obey our will, which travails in thy good:
12. Believe not thy disdain, but presently
13. Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
14. Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;
15. Or I will throw thee from my care for ever
16. Into the staggers and the careless lapse
17. Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate
18. Loosing upon thee, in the name of justice,
19. Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer.